[1] The construction of the tower is linked to the name of the famous Guglielmo Embriaco who, together with his brother Primo di Castello's fleet, distinguished himself in the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, during First Crusade.

The massive structure in large blocks of rusticated stone, 41 meters high, has slits in the curtain walls for lighting and at the top is crowned by a triple frame of increasingly projecting hanging arches.

The motif of the hanging arches on stone shelves, surmounted by the sawtooth frame, is found in almost all the churches of the time, but its repetition in overlapping orders is undoubtedly original.

It is assumed that the material used comes from the remains of the first walls of Genoa (864), now abandoned, which ran not far away, while the technique was always the normal one used in the early Middle Ages on the model of the late Roman period.

He had some architectural modifications to the palace made which are currently not very visible and some frescoes attributed to Giovanni Andrea Ansaldo, still present today.