Palazzi di Genova

Palazzi di Genova is an historically influential architectural book created by Peter Paul Rubens in 1622. Classified as printed text with etched illustrations, the work serves not as a painting, but as a detailed reference manual documenting the grand palaces and civic architecture of Genoa, Italy. Based on studies Rubens conducted during his time in the city between 1600 and 1608, this important publication is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Rubens produced this volume to showcase the innovative Renaissance and Baroque architecture of Genoa to a wider Northern European audience. The carefully executed prints provide precise measured plans, elevations, and cross sections of prominent private residences, known locally as palazzi. By illustrating the complex organization and ornamentation of these luxurious dwellings and public buildings, Rubens provided fellow artists and patrons with highly authoritative templates for monumental domestic architecture.

The detailed plates in Palazzi di Genova were fundamental in disseminating Italian architectural trends outside the peninsula, profoundly influencing late Baroque and early Palladian styles in Flanders and England. The publication’s existence underscores Rubens’s wide-ranging interests beyond painting, cementing his role as a key transmitter of Italian classical culture. The quality of these surviving original prints ensures their continued importance as primary sources for understanding 17th-century building practices and artistic exchange.