On Via Cairoli in Genoa, among the Rolli palaces recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site, stands Palazzo Lomellini-Doria Lamba. Since 1845 it has housed the Società del Casino di Genova, one of Italy's oldest private clubs and, despite its name, not a gambling establishment.
Founding in 1836
The Società del Casino was founded in the spring of 1836 by the marquis Stefano Giustiniani together with 44 other notable citizens from Genoa's pro-Savoy aristocracy. Genoa had been an independent republic until 1815, when it was absorbed into the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the club's founders, families aligned with the new Savoy rule, wanted a private space in which to consolidate social, political and cultural ties. The word "casino" here follows Italian usage of the period, meaning a small private clubhouse rather than a gambling house, on the model of the gentlemen's clubs of London and Paris. Members met to read newspapers, converse, and play cards and billiards rather than to gamble.
From Palazzo Lercari-Parodi to Palazzo Lomellini-Doria Lamba
The club's first home was Palazzo Lercari-Parodi on Strada Nuova, now Via Garibaldi, in the aristocratic heart of sixteenth-century Genoa. After nine years there, the society moved in 1845 to its present address, Palazzo Lomellini-Doria Lamba on Via Cairoli.
A Rolli palace
The building is listed among Genoa's Rolli palaces, the roster of aristocratic residences that the Republic of Genoa once designated to house visiting dignitaries. It was built in the sixteenth century and enlarged by the architect Gregorio Petondi in 1776, when the new street later renamed Via Cairoli was laid out. The palace remains the property of the Doria Lamba family, descendants of the Genoese admiral Lamba Doria, who defeated the Venetian fleet at the Battle of Curzola in 1298. Its interiors preserve eighteenth-century frescoes, gilded stuccowork and period furnishings from across the centuries of aristocratic use.
The club today
Nearly two centuries after its founding, the Società del Casino keeps its exclusive character. It groups mainly members of Genoa's old noble families and currently numbers 336 members. The club is not open to the public and can be visited only by invitation of a member. Its rooms continue to host gala dinners, book presentations, lectures and bridge and chess tournaments, much as they did in the nineteenth century.
The society is one of relatively few Italian institutions of its kind to have continued in the same building, under the same name, through the political upheavals of the Risorgimento, two world wars and the social changes of the twentieth century, while keeping its original identity as a private aristocratic circle.
The Via Cairoli address places the club within one of Genoa's most architecturally significant streets, laid out in the sixteenth century as an extension of the aristocratic Strada Nuova and still lined with palaces built or remodelled for the city's leading families during the same period.