The Croce family handed the building to the city of Genoa in 1951 on one binding condition: it had to become a museum. It took thirty-four years. In 1985 the Carignano villa — an eighteenth-century structure remodelled in neoclassical form during the nineteenth century for Giovanni Giacomo Croce, over an earlier seventeenth-century Spinola residence — finally opened its rooms to contemporary art. It has been one of the branches of Genoa's civic museum system ever since.
What to see
The core of the permanent collection carries one person's signature: Maria Cernuschi Ghiringhelli, wife of the Milanese painter and gallery owner Gino Ghiringhelli, who assembled over the years the body of work that ended up here. The second floor holds Osvaldo Licini, Mauro Reggiani, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Dadamaino, Giuseppe Uncini, Vincenzo Agnetti. Altogether the museum keeps more than 3,000 works.
Alongside the masters of the later twentieth century sit recent pieces: Adrian Paci, Marta dell'Angelo, Flavio Favelli, Alberto Tadiello, Ben Vautier. The ground floor still carries its tempera decoration in the eclectic taste of the late nineteenth century and houses the conference room and a library specialised in contemporary art, open to the public. The first floor is given over to temporary exhibitions, which range from design to video, from installation to photography, with excursions into music, cinema, theatre and literature. Alongside the new work run historical shows on the figures and movements that changed artistic research, and steady attention to emerging young artists, with Italian and foreign partners.
Visiting
Villa Croce stands on the Carignano hill, inside a public park facing the sea and looking down on the Fiera exhibition grounds. Since 2012 it has been run jointly by the City of Genoa, the Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura and a group of private backers: Ilaria Bonacossa was curator from June 2012 to December 2017, Carlo Antonelli from January 2018. The programme changes often and not every floor is open at all times, so check what is on before climbing up.
Our editors' tip
We budget half an hour for the garden, not only for the rooms. The park is public and looks out over the port: stepping off the second floor to find cranes and ships in front of you, with the abstract paintings still in your eye, is the best way to end the visit.