Casa di Colombo

The building, next to the Cloister of St. Andrew, was built on the remains that M. Staglieno before, and P.E. Taviani then, spotted as home of Genoese navigator. The original residence of Colombo seems to be localized in Portoria, where his father Domenico had obtained from the convent of St. Stephen appointed over the Olivella Gate, old entrance to St. Vincent. Since 1455, the same monks rented to Colombo home in Vico Straight 37, composed at the time of two plans: a shop on the ground floor where Domenico, lost the job of keeper of the door, led the professions of weaver and wine merchant, and the use of the kitchen to the top floor (the copy of the original lease is exposed inside the monument). During the youth of Christopher and for about a century this part of town was an exceptional population growth which resulted in a further stratification of the urban fabric; the original building, however, was raised to three floors only in the eighteenth century, because it struck in the bombing of the French, in 1684, as confirmed by the analysis of the beams of the floors made by T. Mannoni. In 1887 the City bought the building, inserting it into the program of the restoration of Gates; what it allowed the survival of the center to the transformations that took place between the late '800 and thirties of the last century. The archaeological excavations carried out in the last restoration of 2001 revealed the existence of foundations prior to the medieval period.