The name it carries today is not the one it was born with. Put up in 1606 as the Commissioner's palace, the building that stands west of piazza Palestro, in the old centre of Loano, became the home of the commander of the Savoy garrison after the House of Savoy took over in the middle of the eighteenth century: ever since, the people of Loano have called it Palazzo del Comandante. It was wanted by Andrea II Doria, the count who between 1606 and 1612 carried on his father's plan of turning Loano into an imperial city, redeveloping whole stretches of the old town.
What to see
The front can be read from the street: a loggia runs along the upper floor, the detail that sets the palace apart from the houses packed around it. Over the entrance an old inscription survives, “both in leisure and at work”, cut where the men of the feudal administration walked past.
The building stands in the Borgo di Dentro, the oldest core of the town, closed in by sixteenth-century walls on a pentagonal plan. Within a few dozen metres are Palazzo Doria, now the town hall, the duomo of San Giovanni Battista and the oratories of the Turchini and the Bianchi: this is the group of buildings the Doria raised or refounded one after another, and the Palazzo del Comandante is its least showy and longest-inhabited civic piece.
Visiting
It is not a museum and cannot be toured: today it houses the parish offices of the duomo, so you look at it from outside, from the lane that drops west of piazza Palestro. From the seafront or the railway station it is a few minutes' walk through the carruggi; the way into the old town passes under the clock gate, the one Loano calls porta Passorino, recognisable by the dial above the arch.
Our editors' tip
We suggest coming back towards evening: with the low lights of the carruggi the loggia lifts off the wall and the dome of the duomo appears behind the palace, which is the most photographed view in the centre. Then walk on to Palazzo Doria: on its main floor a Roman mosaic of the imperial age is preserved, the oldest thing in Loano, a couple of minutes from here.