It was built between 1559 and 1565 by Giovan Battista Castello known as the "Bergamasco" and Bernardino Cantone at the behest of Nicolosio Lomellino, an exponent of a Lomellini (family) in full economic and political ascendancy.

Related to the prince Andrea Doria, he accumulated considerable capital in the first half of the 16th century as a concessionaire of the lucrative coral fishery on the Tunisian island of Tabarca.

[1] At the beginning of the 17th century the property passed to the Centurione (family) who carried out an internal renovation, then to the Pallavicini, the Raggi and finally to Andrea Podestà, several times mayor of Genoa between 1866 and 1895.

The open courtyard is bordered on the sides by the rear wings of the palazzo, while the terraces overlook a grandiose nymphaeum built in the 18th century to a design by Domenico Parodi.

Documents, which still exist today, relating to the dispute between the artist and Centurione (1625), confirm the painter's work in three rooms on the first piano nobile, the frescoes of which were concealed by later interventions with a thick layer of plaster and a false ceiling in the central hall.

In two drawing rooms on the piano nobile, the Bolognese Giacomo Antonio Boni frescoed Jupiter and the goat Amaltea and Domenico Parodi Bacchus holds the crown Ariadne.