On the other side of the Via Balbi, almost opposite the Palazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini, is the Palazzo Balbi, which possesses the loveliest cortile in Genoa, with an orange garden, and in the Great Hall a fine gallery of pictures.  Here is the Vandyck portrait of Philip ii of Spain, which Velasquez not only used as a model, or at least remembered when he painted his equestrian Olivarez in the Prado, but which he changed, for originally it was a portrait of Francesco Maria Balbi, till, as is said, Velasquez came and painted there the face of Philip ii.  Certainly Velasquez may have sketched the picture and used it later, but it seems unlikely that he would have painted the face of Philip ii, whom he had never seen, though the Genoese at that time might well have asked him to do so.[7]

As you continue on your way up Via Balbi, you have on your right the Palazzo dell’ Universita, with its magnificent staircase built in 1623 by Bartolommeo Bianco.  Some statues by Giovanni da Bologna make it worth a visit, while of old the tomb of Simone Boccanegra, the great Doge, made such a visit pious and necessary.

Opposite the University is the Palazzo Reale, which once belonged to the Durazzo family.  A crucifixion by Vandyck is perhaps not too spoiled to be still called his work.

So at last you will come to the Piazza Acquaverde and the Statue of Columbus, which is altogether dwarfed by the Railway Station.  Not far away to the left, behind this last, you will find the great Palazzo Doria.  It is almost nothing now, but in John Evelyn’s day, when accompanied by that “most courteous marchand called Tornson,” he went to see “the rarities,” it was still full of its old splendour.  “One of the greatest palaces here for circuit,” he writes, “is that of the Prince d’Orias, which reaches from the sea to the summit of the mountaines.  The house is most magnificently built without, nor less gloriously furnished within, having whole tables and bedsteads of massy silver, many of them sett with achates, onyxes, cornelians, lazulis, pearls, turquizes, and other precious stones.  The pictures and statues are innumerable.  To this palace belong three gardens, the first whereof is beautified with a terrace supported by pillars of marble; there is a fountaine of eagles, and one of Neptune, with other sea-gods, all of the purest white marble:  they stand in a most ample basine of the same stone.  At the side of this garden is such an aviary as S^r.  Fra. Bacon describes in his Sermones Fidelium or Essays, wherein grow trees of more than two foote diameter, besides cypresse, myrtils, lentiscs, and other rare shrubs, which serve to nestle and pearch all sorts of birds, who have an ayre and place enough under their ayrie canopy, supported with huge iron worke stupendious for its fabrick and the charge.  The other two gardens are full of orange trees, citrons, and pomegranates; fountaines, grotts, and statues; one of the latter is a colossal Jupiter, under which is a sepulchre of a beloved dog, for the care of which one of this family receiv’d of the K. of Spayne 500 crownes a yeare during the life of the faithful animal.  The reservoir of water here is a most admirable piece of art; and so is the grotto over against it.”