This villa-cum-palace was the private residence of Andrea Doria – Admiral to Emperor Charles V of Habsburg and Genoa’s ‘father figure’ in the mid-16th century.
Principe, in Italian, means ‘Prince’, and this Palace owes its name to the title of Prince of Melfi held by Andrea Doria, who actually governed the city without ever holding any official public office within the government.
The Palace was set within grounds the reach and magnificence of which are hard to imagine in this day and age. Suffice it to say that the mansion even had private sea-landing facilities.
Kings and diplomats from every country were received here, including the Emperor himself. However, as the palace was officially outside the city walls, it was never listed in the Rolli, the scrolls of parchment bearing the names of all the stately homes that were available to host prominent guests of the Republic.
From here Andrea Doria controlled the city without ever coming anywhere near Palazzo Ducale, where the aristocratic oligarchy officially governed the Republic.
Besides paintings by various artists, among whom are Piola and Titian, the Palace has an extensive and well-preserved cycle of frescoes and stuccowork on mythological subjects by Perin del Vaga, a painter who worked with Raphael.
The sea-facing garden features the Fontana dei Delfini (Dolphin Fountain) by Perin del Vaga, a group representing a Triton or Satyr riding a Dolphin and the Neptune Fountain by Taddeo Carlone (1585).
The hill-side garden gradually disappeared under the advancing 19th and 20th-century urbanization. This part of the grounds was where the ‘Giant’ used to be, an eight-meter high statue dedicated to Jupiter and representing Emperor Charles V.
The only surviving feature of these gardens is the Grotto, now part of a modern housing block, built in the 16th century by Galeazzo Alezzi and entirely decorated with marine-theme mosaics.