What we call today the Royal Palace is actually a large patrician residence built, increased over time and decorated with splendour, in addition to the Savoy family in the nineteenth century, by two great Genoese dynasties: the Balbi (who built it between 1643 and 1650) and the Durazzo (who enlarged it between the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the following century).
The palace is perhaps the largest seventeenth and eighteenth century architectural complex in Genoa that has preserved intact its representative interiors, complete with both fixed decorations (frescoes and stuccoes) and furniture (paintings, sculptures, furnishings and furnishings). The vaults of the salons and galleries are frescoed by some of the most important names in baroque and rococo decoration. Among the over one hundred paintings on display in the rooms are works by the best Genoese artists of the seventeenth century together with masterpieces by Bassano, Tintoretto, Luca Giordano, Anton Van Dyck, Ferdinand Voet and Guercino.
