Genovesato (Genoese area) - Turismo in Provincia di Genova

GENOVESATO
A SEA OF GARDENS
Nature meets Art
Villa Serra
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Genoese villas. The pomp and glory of the past
is still evident in the Genoese villas which
enchanted Henri de Saint Simon and Friedrich
Nietzsche during their grand Italian tour. There
is a large concentration of villas on the hillside
of Albaro, once an aristocratic holiday spot and
long considered a chic part of the city. In
particular, the notable villas in Via Albaro are:
Villa Saluzzo Mongiardino (1700's), No. 1
George Byron stayed there in 1823; Villa
Paradiso (late 1500's) No. 4, is a private
dwelling, containing frescoes by Tavarone, and
Castello, and is where Fabrizio De André lived
out his youth and met Gino Paoli, who lived in a
wing of the villa above, known as Il Paradisetto;
Villa Saluzzo Parodi, opposite the former; Villa
Giustiniani Cambiaso (1500's), opposite the
Church of San Francesco, now houses the
faculty of engineering, and was designed by
Galeazzo Alessi; Villa Saluzzo Bombrini (late XIX
century) No. 38, is now the Conservatorium
Niccolò Paganini boasting an English style park.
Villa Imperiale, located in the neighbourhood of
San Fruttuoso, and constructed at the end of
the XVth century for the nobleman Lorenzo
Cristoforo Cattaneo, hosted King Louis XIIth of
France in 1502. It now belongs to the city council,
and it has a 16th century style park. Villa Croce
was built in the 1800's, on the hill of Carignano,
and now looks onto Genoa's Fair and Exhibition
centre. It was donated by Andrea Croce to the City
Council of Genoa, and now hosts the Museum of
Contemporary Art. The Nervi Parks, where nature
meets art. Lush, plush, almost tropical vegetation
has thrived, protected, in The Nervi Parks, thanks
to the mild nature of its climate. A green fabric of
palms, sequoias, magnolias, araucarias, cicas,
exotic and mediterranean plants and spectacular
rose bushes, spread out over more than 9 hectares.
Three historic villas in the park now host valuable
museums, which represent the new museum
wing of “La Superba”. In Villa Gropallo, country
residence of the Marquis Gaetano Gropallo, there
is the V. Brocchi library. In Villa Saluzzo Serra (XVIth
century) there is the Gallery of Modern Art, with
works of Italian artists from the XIXth and XXth
centuries, and the eighteenth century Villa
Grimaldi Fassio with its English park sloping down
towards the sea and its characteristic rose garden.
It is now the Museum Frugone Collection, a gallery
of nineteenth century figurative art. Further on, at
No. 4. Serra Gropallo St., there is La Wolfsoniana,