Via Garibaldi And The Musei Di Strada Nuova: Palazzo Rosso, Bianco And Tursi

Via Garibaldi in Genoa, the coastal city in Liguria on the Ligurian Sea, is the street the Republic built to show off. Laid out as the Strada Nuova, it became the stage for the Palazzi dei Rolli, the rotating roster of aristocratic palaces that hosted state visits, and UNESCO inscribed the whole system in 2006 as "Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli", an area containing the 42 palaces that were on the Rolli lists of 1576, 1588, 1599, 1614 and 1664. Three of those palaces, Palazzo Rosso, Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Doria-Tursi, today operate together as the Musei di Strada Nuova, and this page covers the street, the museums, the 2026 tickets and hours, and how to fold it all into a visit to Genoa Travel Guide's wider coverage of the city.

What Is Via Garibaldi In Genoa?

Via Garibaldi is the central street of Genoa's UNESCO World Heritage listing, "Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli", a system that contains the 42 palaces named on the Rolli lists of 1576, 1588, 1599, 1614 and 1664. The lists were a public roster of aristocratic residences, and palaces on them could be drawn by lot to host state visits to the Republic of Genoa, which lasted until 1797.

The street itself was created as the Strada Nuova, a deliberately planned thoroughfare of grand residences rather than a road that grew by accident, and the name Strade Nuove later covered the wider system that includes the neighbouring streets. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2006. The visitor information office IAT Garibaldi sits at Via Garibaldi 12r and opens daily 09:00 to 18:20, with reduced hours on 25 December and 1 January, so a first stop on the street can double as a place to pick up maps and event listings.

The palaces are not scattered randomly. The Rolli system divided the listed buildings into categories, so a visiting dignitary of a given rank was lodged in a palace of a matching tier, and the drawing by lot gave the hosting duty a rotation. The autumn 2026 edition of the Rolli Days, which ran Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October 2026, marked the twentieth anniversary of the 2006 UNESCO inscription under the theme "Abitare il cambiamento". For the wider picture of the palace system across the city, see the guide to the Palazzi dei Rolli.

What Are The Musei Di Strada Nuova?

The Musei di Strada Nuova are three palaces on and around Via Garibaldi run as one museum: Palazzo Rosso, Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Doria-Tursi. In the winter timetable, 28 September 2026 to 18 April 2027, all three open daily 10:00 to 18:30, but on Mondays only Palazzo Rosso can be visited, and the museums close entirely on a RED weather alert.

Want to wander the street and the palaces at your own pace? Book a self-guided audio tour here.

Each palace has its own character. Palazzo Rosso and Palazzo Bianco face the street itself and carry their traditional colour names. Palazzo Doria-Tursi completes the group and holds one specific object that draws visitors on its own: Paganini's violin "Il Cannone", built in Cremona in 1743 by Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri, is kept there and shown in the Paganini rooms. A visit to all three is the standard way to see the museum, and the layout means you can walk between them without leaving the historic street pattern.

The museums sit inside the old town that the official tourism site describes as one of the largest medieval historic centres in Europe, 113 hectares of it, and the street forms a natural bridge between that core and the wider city. From the top of Via Garibaldi the walk toward Piazza De Ferrari leads into the modern commercial city; toward the lower end you arrive near Genova Piazza Principe station and Via Balbi, where more Rolli palaces line the continuation of the Strade Nuove idea.

What Do Tickets To The Strada Nuova Museums Cost?

The combined ticket for the Musei di Strada Nuova together with the Museo di Sant'Agostino costs 14 EUR full price and 9 EUR reduced, per the museums' own Strada Nuova page. The Genoa Museum Card offers an alternative for heavier museum days: 24 EUR for 24 hours or 45 EUR for 48 hours (2026 rates), covering 28 city museums, 19 municipal plus 9 others.

The combined ticket pairs the three palaces with the Museo di Sant'Agostino, itself housed in a former convent in the old town, so the pairing suits a full day of museum-going rather than a quick pass through one palace. The Museum Card suits a different plan again, one that strings together the Strada Nuova museums with Palazzo Ducale, Palazzo Reale and the city's other museum holdings inside a 24 or 48 hour window. No card version covers Volabus, Navebus or trains.

What Are The Opening Hours Of The Strada Nuova Museums?

In the winter timetable, 28 September 2026 to 18 April 2027, the Musei di Strada Nuova open daily from 10:00 to 18:30, with one exception: on Mondays only Palazzo Rosso can be visited, so Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Doria-Tursi are out of reach on that day of the week in this timetable. The museums also close on a RED weather alert, the highest level of the regional alert scale.

The Monday rule is the detail that catches planners. A Monday visitor to Genoa who has only that day for the palaces can still enter Palazzo Rosso, but the other two buildings of the museum group wait for another day. The RED alert closure matters most in the rainier months: the official Aeronautica Militare CLINO 1971-2000 normals for Genoa Sestri record October as the month with the highest monthly rain total, 171.3 mm, against 24.2 mm in July, so an autumn or winter itinerary benefits from a flexible day in reserve.

What Is Inside Palazzo Rosso?

Palazzo Rosso is the museum group's art-focused palace on Via Garibaldi, one of the three buildings of the Musei di Strada Nuova, and in the winter timetable it is the only one of the three open on Mondays, from 10:00 to 18:30. Its name comes from the traditional colour identity of the building, and it is included in the 14 EUR combined ticket with Palazzo Bianco, Palazzo Doria-Tursi and the Museo di Sant'Agostino.

The palace holds the decorative and painted collections of the museum group. Beyond the galleries, the building's rooftop level is used as a viewing terrace over the street and the city, and a lift inside the building serves the floors; the museums' own pages note that the elevator at Palazzo Rosso has been temporarily out of service in recent page data, so anyone relying on step-free access should confirm current status with the museum before a visit. For other elevated views of the city that are reached by public transport, the Spianata Castelletto lift and the Zecca-Righi funicular both run daily 06:40 to 24:00, with a single ride at 1.20 EUR on AMT's vertical-transport fare.

Palazzo Rosso rewards a slow pass. The galleries sit inside the sequence of rooms of an inhabited aristocratic palace rather than a purpose-built museum, so the visit reads as both a collection and an interior. The rooftop terrace, when open, frames the ridge of the Strade Nuove against the hills that press in behind Genoa's narrow coastal strip.

What Is Inside Palazzo Bianco?

Palazzo Bianco is the second of the three Musei di Strada Nuova palaces, holding the group's collection of older European painting inside a palace named for its white facade identity, and in the winter timetable, 28 September 2026 to 18 April 2027, it opens daily 10:00 to 18:30 except Mondays, when only Palazzo Rosso can be visited. It shares the 14 EUR combined ticket with the other two palaces and the Museo di Sant'Agostino.

The palace reopened as a gallery in the modern museum group and its hang mixes Italian, Flemish and Spanish painting, the standard frame for a Genoese aristocratic collection built during the Republic's trading centuries. The Republic of Genoa lasted until 1797, and the collecting that filled houses like this one belongs to that arc. Visitors pairing the paintings with sacred art elsewhere in the city can continue to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, whose treasury museum keeps its own hours, Monday to Saturday 09:00 to 12:00 and 15:00 to 18:00, closed Sunday.

What Is Inside Palazzo Doria-Tursi?

Palazzo Doria-Tursi is the third palace of the Musei di Strada Nuova and holds the Paganini rooms, where the violin "Il Cannone" is displayed: the instrument was built in Cremona in 1743 by Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri, and the museums' own page confirms it stands at Palazzo Doria-Tursi. In the winter timetable it opens 10:00 to 18:30 daily except Monday, and the combined 14 EUR ticket includes it.

The violin is the single most famous object in the museum group. Niccolò Paganini's name attaches to it through the rooms' presentation, and the instrument itself carries its maker, city and year plainly: Cremona, 1743, Guarneri. The palace also completes the architectural run of the museum group, standing at the head of the street's palace sequence. Visitors who want a longer musical and maritime arc through Genoa can pair this stop with the Galata Museo del Mare, open 10:00 to 19:00, a museum of 12,000 square metres over five levels and 31 rooms.

How Do The Palazzi Dei Rolli And UNESCO Fit Together?

UNESCO inscribed "Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli" in 2006, and the inscribed area contains the 42 palaces that were on the Rolli lists, which date from 1576, 1588, 1599, 1614 and 1664. The lists set which aristocratic residences could be drawn by lot to host state visits, and the three Musei di Strada Nuova palaces belong to that same system along the Strade Nuove.

The listing was unusual for recognising a system rather than a single monument: the streets, the palaces and the hosting roster are inscribed together. Via Garibaldi is the core of it, but the system extends into the neighbouring streets, and Via Balbi around Genova Piazza Principe continues the same urban idea. Genoa's European Capital of Culture year came earlier, 2004, shared with Lille, and the UNESCO inscription two years later consolidated the restoration attention the Strade Nuove had received.

What Are The Rolli Days In Genoa?

The Rolli Days are periodic events that open the Rolli palaces to visitors, and the autumn 2026 edition ran from Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October 2026 under the theme "Abitare il cambiamento", marking the twentieth anniversary of the 2006 UNESCO inscription. Entry to the palaces during the event is free with booking required at most buildings, and guided tours are offered.

The event is the one moment when the system shows itself whole: palaces that are normally private or institutional open their doors along the Strade Nuove and beyond. The autumn 2026 edition was the occasion for the twentieth-anniversary programme. Dates for a 2027 edition have not been announced, so anyone planning around the event should check the city's official tourism channels closer to the time. A wider events calendar for the city, including the Salone Nautico (1 to 6 October 2026) and the Festival della Scienza (22 October to 1 November 2026), sits in the guide to Genoa events.

How Do You Get To Via Garibaldi In Genoa?

Via Garibaldi lies in Genoa's historic centre between Piazza De Ferrari and the Genova Piazza Principe station area, and the nearest metro stations on the 7 km Brin to Brignole line are Principe, Darsena, San Giorgio, Sant'Agostino and De Ferrari, with an AMT ticket costing 2.00 EUR for 110 minutes on the whole network. The visitor information office IAT Garibaldi at Via Garibaldi 12r opens daily 09:00 to 18:20.

The AMT single ticket covers metro, bus and the network's surface lines for 110 minutes at 2.00 EUR, with an integrated AMT and Trenitalia version at 2.20 EUR and a carnet of 11 tickets at 20.00 EUR. The metro's 8 stations run Brin, Dinegro, Principe, Darsena, San Giorgio, Sant'Agostino, De Ferrari, Brignole; extensions to Canepari and Martinez are not open in October 2026. Arriving from the airport, the Volabus links Genova Cristoforo Colombo airport with Principe, De Ferrari and Brignole in about 30 minutes, and it requires the 10.00 EUR Met Daily 24 hour ticket, which covers the whole AMT network including line 782 toward Portofino.

How Much Time Should You Give Via Garibaldi And Its Museums?

A full visit to the three Musei di Strada Nuova palaces, in the winter timetable open 10:00 to 18:30 with Palazzo Rosso alone on Mondays, fits comfortably inside half a day, and the combined 14 EUR ticket with the Museo di Sant'Agostino stretches that toward a full museum day; the street itself, the terraces and the walk toward Piazza De Ferrari or Principe add the rest.

The practical plan is to treat the street as a spine. Start at the IAT Garibaldi office for orientation, work through the palaces in order, and finish along the ridge toward Via XX Settembre and the modern city, or descend toward the Porto Antico and the Aquarium of Genoa, which opens 365 days a year with fixed-date adult tickets from 26.00 EUR. Shoppers can fold in the boutiques along the way using the Genoa shopping guide, and anyone with an extra hour can head to the nearby Mercato Orientale on Via XX Settembre for the food side of the city.

A guided option compresses the learning curve. The site's featured pick, a private historical tour of Genoa, covers the city's historical core with a private guide and rickshaw, which suits the steep geography between the Strade Nuove and the old town; Check availability on the operator's live listing. A Segway tour of the UNESCO World Heritage site covers the same protected area in a different register.

Common Questions About Via Garibaldi And The Strada Nuova Museums