Palazzo Pallavicini-Cambiaso (Pallavicini-Cambiaso Palace), Genoa

Palazzo Pallavicini-Cambiaso, aka Palazzo Agostino Pallavicini, at Via Garibaldi number 1, was originally built in 1558. The building was commissioned by Agostino Pallavicini, the Genoese ambassador to Spain, who was also the brother of Tobia Pallavicino, the one who, in the same years, built number 4 in Via Garibaldi, currently known as Palazzo Tobia Pallavicino.

Of all Agostino's sons, Niccolò Pallavicini (1562-1619) was particularly distinguished; he hosted Rubens during his stay in Genoa, and had him paint some of the greatest masterpieces of his Genoese period, including his own portrait and that of his wife, Maria Serra. The palace, featured in Rubens's edition of Palazzi di Genova of 1622, became the property of the Cambiaso family by the mid-18th century.

The building was designed by Bernardino Cantone. Its façade, very elegant, has an ashlar facing made of rusticated gray stone that brings out the white marble of the baseboards, in which an 18th-century votive shrine is framed. The portal is decorated with a Mannerist-style bucrania (ox head) frieze.

Among other merits of the building – relatively modest in size, but still rather grand, in part due to its prime location on Via Garibaldi and the vicinity of Piazza delle Fontane Marose – are the Rape of the Sabines fresco in the living room, on the main floor, and the History of Cupid and Psyche, in the large hall, both painted by the Genoese artists Andrea and Ottavio Semino.

The building is currently owned by a prominent banking institution.