Palazzo Viale-Salvarezza

Halfway down Noli's main street, the late-seventeenth-century Palazzo Viale-Salvarezza surrounds the medieval Torre della Marina. The palazzo was built for the Genoese senator Agostino Viale after his role in ending a conspiracy against the town in 1673; an iron cannonball once embedded in its facade recalls the 1808 bombardment of Noli.

Why it matters

The palazzo's history records a political debt. In 1673, the duke of Savoy drew some residents into a plot to hand Noli over. The Republic of Genoa sent senator Agostino Viale, at the consuls' request and by order of Doge Giovanni Battista Lercari; Viale helped neutralise the conspiracy and restore order. The grateful community gave Viale the Torre della Marina, considered the city's most beautiful tower. He built his family palace around it and a second, smaller tower. The building therefore compresses three ages into one facade: a twelfth-century tower of the defences, a seicento residence of Genoese connection, and the nineteenth-century scars of a war with Britain.

What to notice

The facade combines the medieval Torre della Marina, a twelfth-century structure, and a smaller tower, both incorporated into the later palazzo. The medieval tower's mass interrupts the regular rhythm of the windows. An iron cannonball was embedded in the facade after the naval bombardment Noli endured on 1 August 1808, when the English brig Wizard and ship of the line Kent shelled the town, then part of the French-dominated Ligurian Republic, for nearly three hours. The ball was removed during a later restoration. Work in the 1970s altered parts of the building, though fragments of the exterior decoration survive along the piano nobile.

Context and history

The palace's story begins with the conspiracy of 1673 and ends, residentially, with the family that gave it its double name. Viale's descendants lived in the house for roughly the following century, after which it passed by cession to the Salvarezza family, whose name it still carries. Twentieth-century alterations, especially in the 1970s, changed parts of the building's fabric. The result is a late-seventeenth-century residence incorporating an older tower. The nearby Torre del Canto shares the street frontage, and the town hall preserves civic records from the republic. The palazzo is listed among the historic buildings of Noli's borgo.