22. Palace of Bartolomeo Lomellino

The palace was built in 1565/1570 by Bartolomeo brother of the Nicolosio L. in Strada Nuova. It was included in the rolls from 1588 to 1664 and subsequently passing through the female line to the Rostan Reggio family. It was finally bought by the Raggio family in 1892. It stands in the middle of a residential area which, with its wide-open spaces, seem suburban rather than central. It stood outside the 12th,centuty walls but was inside the old walls (1320,1536) and its original disposition seems to fit it snugly into the depression of Vallechiara. This is how it appears in Rubens’ view, elongatted and harmoniously arranged by pictorial quadratura into axes (1622 ed.; Palazzo I). It is interesting to note that the columns (1566) were provided by Giacomo Guidetti and Giovanni Lorago, as witnessed by Bernardino Cantone and by the judge of quality G. B. Spinola, the brother of Tommaso, who had commissioned G. B. Castello to build the portal of the house of Santa Caterina. In spite of buying the “villa” of San Bernardo dell’Olivella (1581), it was not until 1775 that Agostino L. engaged Emanuele Andrea Tagliafichi to design a garden for it and to modernise some interiors, which may be seen in the plates by M. P. Gauthier in the doors and marble busts framed by fine Rococo stucco work.

All was to change when Teresa Lommellino’s inheritance was sold by Marchesa Elisa Rostan Reggio. to Edilio Raggio in 1892. If it were not for Rubern’s, eight engravings of the building, its original appearance would now be unrecognisable on account of the addiction of connecting stairs leading to the original staircase, alteration to turn the house into a school rented out by the Council in 1875 as a technical business institute, extensions (1908) and the neo-Renaissance renovation of the façade executed by the engineer Lodigiani. The upper floors also suffered serious damage during the Second World War, including the loss of a monumental fireplace and of much of the decoration of the building in which meeting of the Arcadi were held.