[5] Commonly today the name of Portoria refers to the neighborhood of Piccapietra, in the heart of the modern city, but its history is ancient: before wartime destruction and, above all, building speculation wiped out the old artisans' houses, caruggi and small squares, uprooting its population, it was a kind of socio-linguistic enclave.

And in the street called Portoria there is a small hospital built in our time for the incurably ill; and besides the fact that the building is large and beautiful, the order of the service is so beautiful that people from Rome and from many other principal cities have come to take notes from this little hospital; and the Genoese themselves have gone to Rome to administer such a place.In the seventeenth century, Strada Giulia was opened in the district, widening the previous "Strada Felice" and creating the first vehicular connection between the center of Genoa and the lower Val Bisagno.

These charitable initiatives sought to intervene within the limits of the possibilities of the time to alleviate situations of infirmity caused by the difficult living conditions of the poor, who constituted the majority of the population.

Almost completely destroyed by bombing in World War II, what remained of the complex was demolished in the 1960s;[14] the new Palace of Justice was built on the site of the 18th-century building, which preserves the colonnaded courtyard, the monumental staircase of the old hospital and some statues of benefactors inside.

The "Ospedale degli Incurabili" or "dei Cronici," popularly called "Spedaletto," was founded by Ettore Vernazza in 1499; for four centuries it was Genoa's most important institution for the care of the chronically and mentally ill.

[16] The road, perhaps muddy from the rain, sank under the weight of the mortar, and the soldiers asked the locals for help, swearing at them in a bad way; when a sergeant raised a stick against a man to make him obey, the revolt began.

In the 1960s, with the demolition of the old quarter, the statue was moved to Palazzo Tursi; after restoration work, in 2001 it was rearranged in its original location, in front of the Palace of Justice, albeit in a completely changed urban context.

"In fact no document proves who was the initiator of that memorable uprising, and therefore I will say along with Neri, that the monument of Portoria instead of an individual hero represents the generous daring of a people who, having reached the height of oppression, broke their chains and claimed their freedom.

Even today, many years later, it is not uncommon for the terms havoc and speculation to be used to define these urbanistic operations, although a perhaps inevitable consequence of the city's expansion that began in the late nineteenth century.

It consists of two adjoining areas: one, smaller, in front of the Carlo Felice theater, corresponding roughly to the old S. Domenico square, which can be seen today in its arrangement from the 1820s, when the church of S. Domenico to build the theater and the palace of the Ligustic Academy of Fine Arts; the second and much larger area, quadrangular in shape and surrounded by buildings in the eclectic style, was created by earthworks and demolitions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the major arteries that converge there were opened, making it the main road junction of the modern city.

The gate, already modified in 1825, was demolished in 1877 to build the square, along with the promenade that joined Villetta Di Negro to the Acquasola esplanade, designed by Carlo Barabino only fifty years earlier.

An important road junction, on one side it connects through the street of the same name, Via Dante, to Piazza De Ferrari, while at the other end is the Cristoforo Colombo tunnel, opened in 1937, which connects the city center to the Foce area; the square is characterized by the strong contrast between the imposing architecture in the rationalist style (including the two skyscrapers: the Piacentini Tower and the Dante due tower) and the surviving medieval monuments: the Porta Soprana, the Columbus house, and the cloister of the disappeared convent of S. Andrew, which stood not far away.

[6] While the three main squares located on the perimeter of the district constitute important road junctions, this space created in the 1960s in what had been the center of the ancient suburb of Piccapietra[35] is instead a pedestrian area with no vehicular outlets.

[10] Its inauguration was experienced by the city as a great event; the gallery quickly became a meeting place for intellectuals and illustrious personalities, with its elegant establishments, including the "Caffè Roma," a hangout for writers, poets and journalists, and the "Libreria Editrice Moderna," which published many books by Genoese authors.

Barabino transformed the area immediately outside the walls into a wide panoramic terrace overlooking the Bisagno plain and the eastern hills, surrounded by trees arranged in regular rows and a lawn with a fountain in the center.

Although inspired by the then-fashionable French model, Barabino did not simply use the walkway of the old walls to create a promenade, but built a new rampart on the fill of the moat to enlarge the area designated as a public garden.

The building, in neoclassical style by architect Carlo Barabino, faces Piazza De Ferrari with its columned pronaos, the only surviving element, together with the west portico, of the original construction, which was almost completely destroyed by bombing in World War II.

Several plans for reconstruction were submitted after the war, but it was not until 1987, after a long and heated debate that a project, drawn up by Aldo Rossi in collaboration with Ignazio Gardella and others, was finally approved and work began.

[46] In Piazza Dante, along the short slope leading to the Porta Soprana, a remnant of the ancient "vico dritto Ponticello," is the house where Christopher Columbus lived his childhood, from 1455 to 1470.

[47] The Monumental Bridge, which connects the Acquasola walls with those of St. Clare, was built to a design by Cesare Gamba[48] and Riccardo Haupt between 1893 and 1895, replacing the Porta degli Archi, which was dismantled and rebuilt on the Mura del Prato.

The project was entrusted to designers Giorgio Olcese, Giovanni Romano and Giulio Zappa, who succeeded in integrating the surviving parts of the hospital with a modern steel, glass and concrete structure, also recovering the mezzanine and the large clock in the center to recreate, as far as possible, the original setting of the 18th-century courtyard.

The palace had then replaced the old Loggia dei Mercanti in Piazza Banchi; having ceased to play its role with the advent of the telematic stock exchange, it is now used as a venue for thematic exhibitions set up in the magnificent Art Nouveau-style trading hall.

After the war it was decided to rebuild only the old church, which was rebuilt between 1946 and 1955 to a design by Carlo Ceschi, strictly respecting the original structure, of which the apse part remains, considered one of the best examples of Genoese Romanesque architecture.

Numerous patrician families who had their aristocratic tombs in the church contributed to its reconstruction, and between the 16th and 18th centuries they enriched it with works of art, calling the most talented artists of the time to complete them.

[70] The original church had been founded in 569 by the Bishop of Milan Honoratus, who, following the Lombard invasion of northern Italy, had transferred the seat of the Milanese diocese to Genoa, still under Byzantine rule.

Today almost completely smothered by the urban development of the neighborhood, and for this reason little known even by many Genoese,[74] it can be accessed from Piazza Corvetto, via a staircase leading to the side entrance, or through an archivolt in Largo Eros Lanfranco, in front of the prefecture building, or even from the commercial gallery on Via XII Ottobre.

With the suppressions of 1797, the nuns had to abandon the convent, which was converted into apartments, while the church was used as a warehouse until 1826, when it was reopened for worship and entrusted by Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini to the Evangelical Workers,[76] who still officiate there today.

In Romanesque style, dating from the 12th century, with a rectangular plan, the cloister consists of twin columns on the sides and in groups of six at the corners, with capitals adorned with phytomorphic and zoomorphic motifs; the elements that composed it, recovered by architect Alfredo d'Andrade, were placed on this site in 1924.

[6] Built in 1539 to a design by Giovanni Maria Olgiati, it was decorated on the outer side with travertine Doric columns and surmounted by a statue of St. Stephen, made by Taddeo Carlone.

Near this gate, inside the walls, Christopher Columbus's father Domenico had lived in a house that was demolished in the late 15th century to build the Pammatone hospital and in which the famous navigator would be born in 1451.