On May 10th at 5 pm in S. Maria di Castello, Ferdinando Bonora will inaugurate the photographic exhibition “Portici, portali, porteni” with a conference on the topic, an initiative born from the collaboration between the Santa Maria di Castello cultural association and Assest, the association Centro Storico Est, with the patronage of the Municipality of Genoa and as part of the “Torre Embriaci and surroundings” events that will accompany its opening
The photographs on display (by Renzo Castello, Roberto Chierici, Filippo Maiani and Domenico Ricci) retrace the architectural evolution (until the early 17th century) of the portals which, starting from the second half of the 15th century with the closure of the porticoes, were built in black stone or marble to refine patrician palaces: The exhibition itinerary highlights not only the beauty of these artefacts, but also their current reuse and the degradation to which many are abandoned.
This exhibition also intends to be an opportunity for knowledge and awareness to contribute to the recovery and protection of a cultural heritage widespread throughout the ancient city, of which it constitutes one of the very high quality characterizing elements.
The exhibition is set up in the cistern of S. Maria di Castello and will be open until May 19th from 10am to 1pm and from 3pm to 6pm. Entrance is free.
FROM PORTICOS TO PORTALS
Genoa, a port city, mainly based its economy on trade until the mid-15th century
and on the production of goods.
The warehouses and warehouses housed all kinds of merchandise and the buildings, located along busy streets
around the squares of the consortiums, they opened at street level into large porticoes where guests were received and
customers and the negotiations, exchanges and rituals of the owner family took place.
Starting from the second half of the 15th century, due to the progressive loss of the Eastern colonies followed
to the Turkish conquest of Constantinople (1453) and the new relations established with Spain and Flanders,
radical changes occurred in the economic, social and cultural fabric of the city which changed its
face.
The buildings began to be radically renovated while maintaining what could still be
reused for static purposes, but reconverted to updated uses and forms, adapted to different ways of living and
trends of taste that were taking over: the porticoes were walled up, the multi-mullioned windows infilled and replaced
from modern single light windows, the interiors were structured differently, new plasters were hidden
the pre-existences, which would have been brought to light only from the late 19th century until today, with
scrapings aimed at seeking and highlighting evidence of remote history, or random findings.
New, more grandiose palaces, created thanks to the merging of several adjacent medieval houses, became
instrument of representation of the aristocratic businessmen who assumed a central role in the new
economic season, now decidedly oriented more towards finance than towards commerce like their ancestors.
Once the porticoes were closed, to refine the patrician palaces, atriums, courtyards and staircases were distributed inside. To access it
from the outside, refined portals of black stone or marble were created, true masterpieces of art
decorative elements that still embellish ancient alleys and small squares today.
The masters capable of producing such works almost all came from towns along the shores of the Como lakes and
of Lugano and the Intelvi valleys: they were the Gagginis, the Della Portas, the Riccomannos (but from Pietrasanta), the Apriles, the
D’Aria, the Carlones and other dynasties of sculptors and builders who for generations and centuries were protagonists
of building and sculpting in Genoa.
The oldest examples of portal, quite simple, consisted of two undecorated and surmounted jambs
from over the door with a religious theme. Already from the second half of the fifteenth century, thanks above all to Giovanni Gaggini,
they underwent an evolution through a richer ornamentation, capable of incorporating jambs and
over the door.
With the emergence of the Renaissance style, artists drew inspiration from classical architecture and
they produced portals that often had a round arch, surmounted by entablatures, with emblems
warlike decorations and jambs decorated with medallions of Roman emperors.
Over time, as architecture changed, the portals also changed their shape and initial patterns
mentioned followed a monumental sculptural style. They developed in height, with jambs made up of
single or paired columns or herms, with entablatures decorated with bucrania, paterae, bas-reliefs and statues throughout
round. This is thanks to the influence of personalities such as Silvio Cosini, Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli, Giambattista
Castello il Bergamasco, Gian Giacomo Paracca known as Valsoldo, Taddeo Carlone and others, in architecture often
based on the models of Galeazzo Alessi.
Illuminating examples can be found at the Palazzo del Principe or in Strada Nuova (now via Garibaldi), beyond
than in the rest of the old city.
FROM PORTALS TO DOORS
In the mid-19th century, the exodus of the wealthy classes from the ancient city to new areas began
residential and the use of noble palaces for new uses, already underway by some, was intensified
decades: hotels (particularly those overlooking the port), warehouses, offices (“scagni”), laboratories and
above all apartments to be rented to the working classes, with even substantial adaptation interventions
and mortification of the interior.
In periods of lesser economic availability, the heirs of those who had built the sumptuous homes or
those who had taken over the ownership had already begun to generate income as well
magnificent but unproductive spaces of the monumental atriums to which the portals gave access,
converting them in whole or in part to places of trade or production or storage: in
in some cases entry continued through the ancient portal but into a smaller atrium with partitions; in others
cases the entire atrium was given over to new uses and a new modest door was opened to access the
staircase, while the old one became the entrance to the commercial business, with a new function
often continuing until today as some of the photos show.
This process intensified in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the increase in population
of the historic center (peak in 1936 with 54,745 residents) and of the entire city (peak in 1971 with 816,872
residents). The older part of Genoa took on the role of a large commercial center with a
myriad of shops of all types, often created with further interventions to debase pre-existing structures
of value and only the portals remained to testify to the ancient splendor.
In recent years we have been witnessing new changes, not always positive. Because of
transformation of the commercial network at city level (with the advent of supermarkets, new
shopping centers and now also online shopping), of the morphological characteristics of the centre
historical and the considerable decrease in the population, the ancient districts are fewer and fewer
place of sale and artisanal production, with the closure of many shops which accompanies it
often a decay of housing structures only partially mitigated by tourist development,
moreover, it is not always favorable for the resident community from which houses are taken away at a high cost
accessible.
This degradation inevitably also brings with it that of the portals, which only partially disappear
restored and enhanced while in many other cases defacements, vandalism and lack of maintenance
increasingly accelerate their deterioration.
This exhibition also intends to be an opportunity for knowledge and awareness to contribute
to the recovery and protection of a cultural heritage widespread throughout the ancient city, of which
constitutes one of the characterizing elements of very high quality.
THE MATERIALS
To those who walk, ours alternate with the portals mentioned so far in pure Carrara marble
districts, the not few sculpted in beautiful black of Promontorio that you almost don’t dare call such stone
it equalizes the marbles with strength and shine; less resistant and of a fainter color is another stone that
traean from Lavagna or Chiavari less suitable for carving…
It is with this concise but eloquent image that Federico Alizeri described to the traveler in 1847
materials with which the portals and overdoors in older Genoa were sculpted.
Although today the term Promontorio stone is extended to the entire Marly Limestone outcrop
Genoese amphitheatre, in the 15th century this “Genoese genuine” lithotype represented for just over a century a
excellent material used only for valuable and limited-sized architectural elements such as
overdoors, portals or corbels.
The petrographic characteristics of this level of limited thickness (perhaps a few meters) allowed
create high relief sculptures almost as if they were marble thanks to the lack of fractures or sedimentation planes
like in slate.
A valuable lithotype as it is microcrystalline and capable of “shining”, it was cultivated by stonecutters in large
galleries to “chase” the layer.
The quarries were inside a hill along the right side of the Fossato di San Lazzaro (now Via Venezia – Piazza
Sopranis ), a hill leveled to build the piers of the nineteenth-century port.
The galleries, traces of which were lost after the Municipal Fathers had the entrances walled up in 1629,
they were rediscovered in 1891 by Angelo Boscassi, Inspector of the artistic heritage of the Municipality of Genoa,
before being destroyed during excavation works.
At the end of the 16th century the “black stone of Promontorio” that the Genoese nobles wanted for their portals was
set aside and perhaps the quarries were abandoned and closed not only because the substantial volumes created in
underground they could provide easy hiding places for gangs hostile to the Republic.
Now the Genoa of colored marbles or rather of “colored mixtures” as described with amazement by the people is born
travelers of the early 19th century; perfect term to mean, in a single column or mirror, a whole
of colors created with lithotypes of different origins that want to underline the new richness of the city.
Thanks to Magini, in 1610 old quarries already known in the Roman period were cultivated again
( marmora ligustica ) or new ones are found in the immediate vicinity of the city.
Just to name a few, in Canneto il Lungo (civ. 16) we therefore find a portal with columns in green mix
of Valpolcevera (or green mixture of Pegli?) in oficalcite while unique in the city is the framing
red-purple, subtle but evident in Argilliti di Montoggio, of the portal “the virtue of Spinola” in marble
white ( ! ) in vico della Torre di San Luca 6.
Ligurian stone par excellence, the use of slate or blackboard is certainly very ancient and dates back to the
pre-Roman as evidenced by the burials of the Chiavari necropolis from the 8th and 7th centuries BC. C..
The slates, slightly metamorphosed schistose leaden marls, cultivated up to the present day in quarries along
the outcrops from Uscio to Lavagna and Chiavari have the characteristic property of splitting into very thin slabs
which due to their excellent workability are normally used for dormers, steps, jambs, floors and the like
but they are unable to take on the “shininess” of the Promontorio stone.
Finally, white Carrara marble, for the Romans marmor lunensis, white saccharoid marble
recrystallization, it was already quarried in the Iron Age in the Apuan basins around Colonnata.
After a long period of almost abandonment, the rediscovery of white marble and its quarries, then of
property of the Marquises Malaspina, began in the 11th century thanks to the new fervent building and construction activity
artistic in various centers including Genoa.
Photo by Renzo Castello: On the cover: via San Bernardo 16r, infilled portico. The portal, used by greengrocers and the door next to it. In the other photo Piazza Grillo Cattaneo 1.
