[4] In contrast to the secluded and stately hilltop, the village of Lanaioli, on the banks of the Rio Torbido, where weavers from the Fontanabuona valley lived from the 12th century onward, was, along with Ponticello and Piccapietra, one of the historic working-class agglomerations of the Portoria district; like these it was demolished in the 1970s to build the new business centers.

In the eighteenth century the Sauli family had the Carignano bridge built, which bypassed the densely inhabited valley of the Rivo Torbido (Via Madre di Dio, Via dei Servi) and reached Sarzano.

Barabino's urban plan, as early as 1825, called for the creation of an elliptical square with the basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption in the center, with a series of streets arranged in a radial pattern around it.

The implementation of the urban redevelopment plan for Via Madre di Dio caused the disappearance of the birth house of the famous composer and violinist Niccolò Paganini, which was located at No.

[4] The lively controversy aroused by the demolition was not entirely quelled over time, as attested by a plaque affixed near the place where it stood, along with the original one recovered from the rubble, the text of which was written by Anton Giulio Barrili, and a small bas-relief depicting the aedicule with the “Madonna and Child” present on the facade of the house, preserved in the St. Augustine Museum.

[12] On the area removed from the sea in the first decade of the new century the “Albergo Popolare” (1906) and the “Casa della Gente di Mare” (1909) were built,[13] intended to accommodate migrants and seafarers in transit in the port of Genoa at popular prices.

[15][16] Salita Fieschi, ancient print with the rosy elevation of the temple at the top.The old working-class blocks of flats in Via Madre di Dio, Via dei Servi and Via del Colle (Cheullia), in a state of decay for some time,[17] partly damaged or destroyed by the bombing of World War II, with the systematic application of the urban plan carried out between 1969 and 1973 disappeared completely to make way for modern business centers, housing the offices of the Region of Liguria, municipal bodies and private companies.

The 1966 "Detailed Plan" completed the urban renewal begun in the 1930s with the creation of Piazza Dante, creating, close to the Piacentini Tower, a large building designed by Marco Dasso, called the "Center of the Ligurians," stretched toward the sea along the Rivo Torbido valley, opposed to which another office building, characterized by pink artificial stone cladding, designed by Franco Albini and Franca Helg, was built.

[19] Architect Dasso's intervention, at the center of a bitter controversy between “restorers” and “innovators,” deliberately rejected restyling operations, choosing the path of total renovation of building structures.

[8] At the outlet of the seaside streets, the traffic circle of Via Corsica, the Giovine Italia knoll, and the garden of Villa Croce offer panoramic views of the harbor from the Calata delle Grazie to the International Fair, the causeway, and the sea ring road.

[8] The center of the district is the large square in front of the basilica of S. Maria Assunta, dominated by the grandiose bulk of the sacred building commissioned by the Sauli family, one of Galeazzo Alessi's first Genoese works.

Near Piazzale S. Francesco in 2018 the monument to Raffaele De Ferrari, by Giulio Monteverde, was relocated, once near Piazza del Principe, from where it had been removed in 1989 for traffic reasons and for many years abandoned, not without controversy, in a city hall storage room.

[24] Halfway down Via Corsica, in the square named after shipowner Rocco Piaggio, is the monument to Nino Bixio, the work of Guido Galletti,[25] erected in 1952 to replace the 19th-century one by Enrico Pazzi, which was destroyed by bombing in 1940.

The western section, corso Maurizio Quadrio, originally named after Prince Oddone of Savoy, runs from the Mura delle Grazie to the Cava crossing the area of the "seno di Giano," buried in the late 19th century, where the "sailor's house" and the Albergo Popolare stood.

[2] In Piazza Dante, at the base of the Piacentini Tower, begins Via D'Annunzio, which runs through the entire modern business district to the Sea Ring Road, roughly following the route of the ancient Via dei Servi and Via Madre di Dio.

From Via Madre di Dio branched a maze of narrow alleys and stairways that connected it to Via Fieschi and Via del Colle, on opposite sides of the Rivo Torbido valley.

Voices, shouts and noises resounded from dawn until late in the evening, as recounted by the poet Steva De Franchi, who thus described the atmosphere of the neighborhood in the eighteenth century: “My daughter!

[8][29] The project had originally been commissioned by Domenico Sauli to the Brescian architect Giovanni Bassignani (1653-1717), but he gave it up by passing it on to one of his collaborators, the Frenchman Gerard De Langlade;[2] it consists of four arches, three of which bypass Via Madre di Dio.

A plaque commemorates the merchant Giulio Cesare Drago, who in 1877 had the gates still present on the bridge's parapets built at his own expense to prevent numerous suicide attempts.

The building, which remained in a state of neglect until the mid-1980s, was identified by the City of Genoa as the site for the civic library, which took up residence there in 1998 after a lengthy restoration conducted between 1985 and 1992 to a design by architect Piero Gambacciani.

[34] Enlarged in the second half of the 16th century, when a fresco depicting the Rape of the Sabine women was painted by Andrea Semini in the main-floor hall, in 1659 it was purchased by the Jesuits, who made it the seat of their novitiate, transferring it from the previous Paverano location.

[4][34] Between 1676 and 1683, the Jesuits enlarged the building, making new wings intended to accommodate the novices, and around 1720, the church, named after the founder St. Ignatius, was built to a design by Giovanni Battista Ricca of Oneglia.

[8][38] Named after the Swiss-born entrepreneur Federico Mylius (1838-1892), who gathered there a valuable collection of works of art and other artifacts from churches and historic buildings that were demolished in the 19th century and later dispersed.

[2] The pediment bears the Jacobin-inspired inscription, “To the Sovereign People - Liberty - Equality - The Builders the First Year of the Democratic Ligurian Republic MDCCXCVII.”[8][40] The urban expansion of the district and war events caused the disappearance of some historic churches in the Carignano area, in addition to those attached to the various convents, traces of which remain in the toponymy.

In addition to these there remain two historic religious buildings that are no longer used as places of worship, Santa Maria in Via Lata, an ancient abbey of the Fieschi family, and the Church of the Mother of God, home of the Franzoniana Library.

[4] Located next to the Carignano Bridge, brushed by the automobile junction connecting the city center to the sea ring road, the Mother of God complex is one of the few surviving buildings of the ancient district.

After years of neglect, between 1988 and 1993 it was occupied by a self-managed social center called “the Workshop.”[52] Having regained possession of the building, the Evangelical Workers began its restoration, to use it as the home of their library.

[52] Ratti, a few years before its closure, cited a statue of the Madonna with angels by Honoré Pellé on the high altar, frescoes attributed to Antonio Maria Haffner and Paolo Gerolamo Piola, and paintings by Mulinaretto (“Christ bleeding from the wounds”), Gregorio De Ferrari (“S.

Cava and Strega were also, in the early twentieth century, the names of two popular seaside resorts located on the small beaches at the base of the cliffs below the batteries, in use until the 1950s, when the seabed was buried to build the fairgrounds.

[8][59] The “Cava” beach is one of the places in Genoa nostalgically evoked by a Genoese man who emigrated to South America in the popular song “Ma se ghe penso.” Along the cliffs below the batteries, at the edge of the little beaches, in 1914, on the occasion of the International Hygiene, Marine and Colonial Exposition, a monorail, called Telfer, was built for the first time in Italy, connecting Piazza di Francia (later Piazza della Vittoria) to Molo Giano, inside the port.