The Villa del Principe is the largest and most lavish noble residence in the city of Genoa. Construction works on the buildings began in the 1520s at the behest of Andrea Doria, a valiant admiral and legendary military man. The Palazzo is characterised by an elegant decorative cycle, the result of a collaboration between the patron Andrea and an artist with a cultured and up-to-date language as Perin del Vaga. The artist, a pupil of Raffaello, created for the Villa one of the most important Renaissance cycles of northern Italy.

Together with his wife Peretta Usodimare, Doria established a Renaissance court at the Villa which included first-rate artists such as Girolamo da Treviso, Beccafumi, Pordenone and Silvio Corsini.

In 1533 the Palazzo was host to Emperor Charles V who, welcomed to Genoa with full honours, was a guest at the home of his admiral Andrea.

The building complex was extended and enriched with new works of art by Andrea’s heir, Giovanni Andrea I, and was home to almost five centuries of successive generations of the Doria Pamphilj family, who collected paintings, tapestries and precious furniture within its magnificent 16th-century rooms.

Today the Villa del Principe is a museum filled with hidden treasures, whose splendour can be relived with a visit: just take a walk through its rooms and marvel at its superb frescoes and wonderful tapestries.