The oldest noble palace in the city

The majestic palace, which is the most important civic building in the city and the largest in western Liguria, has always been the sumptuous residence of the Borea d'Olmo family, one of the oldest and most prestigious Matuzian families inextricably linked to the destiny of Sanremo since the 15th century.

The Borea family, originally from Brittany, were well known between the 12th and 14th centuries in Venice, where some of their members were members of the Maggior Consiglio della Serenissima. They later moved to Romagna and were awarded the title of papal nobility by Pope Martin V on 1 May 1420.

In 1430 a member of the family, Antonio Borea, then podestà of Sanremo, had a modest building constructed for the Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, on land cultivated with lemons, owned by Matteo Argarisio, near the Porta di Santo Stefano.

Several years later, Gio Batta Borea, a grain merchant who came from Lugo di Romagna to trade in spices, settled permanently in the city. The latter was almost certainly the designer and builder of the front part of the present palace, the first stone of which seems to have been laid around 1498.

In the following centuries the Borea family remained permanently in Sanremo with several of its members who distinguished themselves particularly in the service of the Church and public institutions, always making themselves loved by the population for their great generosity and willingness to help the poor and unfortunate.
On 6 July 1773 the family was granted the title of Marquis of Olmo by the King of Sardinia Vittorio Amedeo III, while in 1813 Tomaso Gio Batta, then maire (mayor) of Sanremo, was awarded the title of Baron of the French Empire.
In 1914 the family was finally elevated to ducal dignity by the King of Italy Vittorio Emanuele III.

During their long stay in our city, the Borea d'Olmo family gave Sanremo many important figures, including brave soldiers, men of culture, diplomats, administrators and mayors, such as Pietro Michelangelo, who resigned as mayor in the early 1860s for opposing the construction of the railway line along the coast, which - according to the member of the noble Matuzian family - would have cut the city in two, jeopardising its future growth.

The complex, which was undoubtedly once surrounded by a park and vast agricultural plots, then swallowed up by the city's impetuous building expansion between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has been enlarged, renovated and redecorated several times since the end of the fifteenth century, until it took on its current architectural appearance in the Baroque period.
However, the various construction phases of the building are still largely unknown, as are the names of the architects who oversaw the construction of the imposing building up to its final Baroque transformation, which has remained in good condition to this day.


An accurate study of the stylistic solutions of the two high and regular façades with stucco motifs, as well as of the rather composite back of the building, allows us to attribute the design of the palace to architects of great value who were able to create particularly majestic façades in a style then unknown in San Remo.

The palace has five storeys above ground, plus a basement and a less wide ceiling floor, underneath the roof, which is very sloping. The building's cornice, which covers a total perimeter of 185 metres at about 25 metres from the ground, is undoubtedly from the Renaissance period, but harmonises perfectly with the rich and whimsical Baroque decoration of the facades below.

After the gradual alienation of the garden areas that once surrounded the ancient residence of the Borea family, the building now faces directly southwards on Via Matteotti, westwards on Via Cavour and eastwards and northwards on Piazza Borea d'Olmo, where the Principe Amedeo Theatre had been located since 1875, later destroyed in the last world war, and on whose area it has recently been redeveloped.


The thick main walls of the building were built of stone and lime, while the ceilings are all vaulted. The rooms on the two main floors, ten of which are frescoed or decorated with stucco, have vaulted ceilings six metres above the floor, except for one which is about ten metres away.

In 1887, due to the heavy damage caused to the structure by the disastrous earthquake of 23 February of that year, a central rectangular elevation and two lateral square turrets, which had been seriously damaged in the earthquake, were demolished.

The entrance to the palace is marked by two 16th-century marble portals, facing Via Matteotti and Via Cavour, with the original wooden doors lined with studded iron sheets. The two large doors are surmounted by as many niches, which house the statue of the Virgin and Child on the south façade, and that of St John the Baptist on the west side, which is probably linked to the name frequently borne in the past by distinguished members of the Borea family.

Both statues are attributed to the Florentine sculptor Fra' Giovanni Angelo da Montorsoli (c. 1507-1563), one of the greatest representatives of Michelangelo's Mannerism, who, after perhaps being a pupil of Andrea Ferrucci, collaborated on several occasions with Michelangelo himself in the realisation of the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence. His other works include the Fountain of Orion and Neptune in Messina and the high altar of the Bolognese church of Santa Maria dei Servi.
Having lived for several years in Liguria, particularly in Genoa, where he made the statue of Andrea Doria in the mausoleum of the noble Genoese family in the church of San Matteo, it is very likely that he designed the portals for the statues commissioned by the Boreas.

The Virgin's portal gives access to the monumental atrium staircase "alla genovese", formed by two rooms, the first of which is characterised by a large pavilion vault with lunettes, while the second, in a later position compared to the previous one and slightly raised, is covered by cross vaults supported by slender marble columns, which give even greater grandeur to the large vestibule. Its realisation, for the remarkable artistic value that characterises it, is certainly the work of a particularly skilful and expert architect, such as Gio Antonio Ricca, whose presence in the city in 1713 is certified by reliable archival documentation.

A large, comfortable staircase leads to the upper flats, where the members of the owner's family lived, while the numerous servants used to live on the simpler, more modest mezzanine floors.
The first piano nobile, which cannot be visited at present, was transformed and decorated towards the end of the 17th century on commission of Giovanni Battista Borea, who commissioned the Genoese painter Giovanni Battista Merano (1632-1698) to decorate some of the rooms. Among the latter, the gallery stands out in particular, decorated with mirrors, busts and paintings, representing an architectural solution frequently adopted in large Baroque residences.

In the vault of the gallery, Merano painted, presumably in 1695, the Dawn Driving Away the Darkness, where the main subject of the fresco is set in a delicate series of festoons of flowers and fruit, referring to the particularly wealthy and worldly city life of the time. Merano also painted the Stories of the Passion, which adorn the main chapel on the first floor, whose decoration also includes a valuable painting by Van Dyck depicting a Crucifixion, while other frescoed subjects include St. Romulus driving out the Saracens and the Four Cardinal Virtues.

The chapel on the upper main floor, on the other hand, features a richly decorated marble altar with a statue of the Virgin, possibly by Giacomo Antonio Ponsonelli (1654-1735), while the altarpiece depicting the Lamentation over the Body of Christ was probably painted by Merano.
From the latter room one passes into the large reception hall with a ribbed vault open to the sky through a balustrade.
The Borea family coat of arms stands out in the centre, while the paintings, linked to a decorative phase of the 18th century, are perhaps attributable to the workshop of Maurizio Carrega. The rooms around the large, smaller hall are connected towards the east by a series of elegant 18th-century doors.

On the opposite side of the room, two rooms decorated with paintings in the Neo-Pompeian style lead into the large alcove, famous for having hosted Pope Pius VII on the night of 11-12 February 1814, during his return trip to Rome from his French exile in Fontainebleau.
The room of the papal living room has been preserved in its original appearance, characterised by the lively decoration of the vaults, where rows of dancing angels chase each other across the sky.

The bed area is clearly separated from the antechamber by an archway, while two small doors open at the sides to give access to the dressing rooms.
After the pontiff's departure, the Borea family had two commemorative plaques affixed to the doors of the room and the hall where the pope stayed, the text of which was approved by Pius VII himself, who read it before leaving the palace.

After the papal alcove, one enters the great hall, in which portraits of the most illustrious and prestigious representatives of the family are lined up on the walls, a historical reminder of the importance the dynasty once held, celebrating its splendour through the memory of the creators of its economic and social stature.



During the Second World War, the palace was hit several times by naval artillery shells and seriously damaged by the exceptional air displacement caused by the explosion of the torpedo depot in Piazza Colombo during the naval bombardment of 20 October 1944, as well as by the destruction of the adjacent Principe Amedeo Theatre following a violent air raid on the city in August 1944. The serious damage was limited, however, thanks to the extraordinary solidity of the building's load-bearing structures, which have survived very well, remaining intact to this day.

In the course of its long history, the Borea d'Olmo palace, which was also used as a prison in the modern age, and which housed various commercial and artisan businesses and, for a certain period, a coal depot, has hosted many illustrious figures passing through our city, including, in addition to Pope Pius VII on 11 and 11 February 1814, the palace also hosted the Spanish Queen Elisabeth Farnese in 1714 and again in 1756, the King of Sardinia Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy and his sons Victor Amadeus and Otto in 1746, the Spanish Infant Philip of Bourbon in 1747, the French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard in 1773, the Archbishop of Genoa Cardinal Spina in 1813, Queen Maria Cristina of Savoy in 1843, and Prince Philip of Edinburgh in 1948.

Today the palace has been home to various offices, shops and private homes for some time, and until recently also to the Sanremo Civic Museum, in the rooms on the second piano nobile, a museum that has now been set up in the Palazzo Nota, which was the seat of the Town Hall until the 60s.

The same floor also houses the headquarters of the Famija Sanremasca, the association committed to preserving and enhancing the historical, artistic, linguistic and folkloristic heritage of the city.

(sources: text by Andrea Gandolfo; images from private archives and from the WEB)