The Castello D’Albertis dominates the city of Genoa, overlooking the harbour from the Montegalletto hill.

Designed by Captain Enrico Alberto D’Albertis blending architectural styles and with a taste for neo-gothic revival, it was erected on the remains of 16th-century and late medieval fortifications between 1886 and 1892 under the supervision of Alfredo D’Andrade.

Upon his death in 1932, the Captain bequeathed the castle and its collections to the city of Genoa. He wasn’t just leaving the home that he himself imaginatively embellished with exotic, neo-Gothic and Hispano-Moorish references, but also a piece of history of the city: a bastion with 16th-century boundary walls, containing the remains of a tower of the earlier medieval walls, on which the castle itself is based.