Genoa. The Botanical Symphonies of Villa Durazzo, the Patrons' Collections and Nineteenth-Century Fashion

Marquis Ignazio Alessandro Pallavicini loved music and trees equally. That is why, between 1840 and 1846, he commissioned architect Michele Canzio to design a garden capable of expressing these two artistic affections with equal pathos. Here, then, starting spring in the park of Villa Durazzo Pallavicini in Pegli, on the outskirts of Genoa, is the most romantic of incipits, not without esoteric and Masonic reminiscences. The botanical score is articulated in various acts that are staged in the Gothic Avenue, the Romitaggio, the Amusement Park, the Lago Vecchio, the Sorgente, the Cappelletta di Maria, the Castello del Capitano, the Grotte interpreted as Dante's Inferno, up to the Lago Grande and the Giardini di Flora, ending with the water games between pagodas and bridges. In the city, at the Gallery of Modern Art, meanwhile, is the scene of Artists, Patrons and Collectors in 19th-century Genoa, an exhibition in which one discovers how much the most aristocratic families of the time, such as Prince Oddone of Savoy and the Duchess of Galliera, were moved by a taste for beauty. While the Strada Nuova Museums host '800 La Società delle mode', which aims to highlight the taste for fashion that was already evident at the beginning of the 19th century, as testified by the treasures of the Civic Textile Collections. The experience of boarding the old lifts and funicular railways, such as the Zecca-Righi, the Granarolo rack railway, the Levante di Castelletto and Montegalletto lift, to experience the thrill of ascending to the highest parts of the city and from there take vertiginous rides: the route leading to the Castellaccio and Sperone Forts, then on to Forte Begato, the small Puin and the spectacular Diamante that connects Genoa to its mountains now dotted with wild flowers. The enchantment continues as we tackle the helicoidal staircase of the Hotel Bristol Palace adored by Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, a regular customer on his Italian travels, and then dine at the Tre Merli in the marina enjoying traditional Ligurian dishes inside what was once an authentic warehouse for naval goods.