Discover Palazzo del Tribunale, Finalborgo

The Palazzo del Tribunale stands in Finalborgo, the walled nucleus of Finale Ligure, in the province of Savona.

It was where the marquisate was governed and judged. Formerly the seat of the Del Carretto government, it was later the judicial and administrative centre of the Marquisate of Finale.

It is older than its best-known work. The building existed at least from the early years of the fourteenth century. In 1462 the marquis Giovanni I Del Carretto restructured it, entrusting the recovery project to Giorgio Molinari.

Its chapel held an oath. The painting of the Madonna between san Giovanni Battista and sant'Ippolito, by an unknown seventeenth-century hand and carrying a dedicatory inscription of governor Diaz de Zamorano dated 1627, was originally in the internal chapel of this palace — and before it the Finale magistracies swore their oath. It is now in the left nave of San Biagio.

It is a medieval governmental palace, altered twice and never rebuilt. Standing from at least the early fourteenth century, restructured in 1462 and refitted internally in 1781.

The 1462 work is the legible layer. Giorgio Molinari modified both interiors and exteriors, building a new staircase and opening intermediated bifore — the paired windows that give the front its rhythm.

The facade is valued for being unresolved. The record singles it out for carrying the fifteenth-century pictorial decorations together with the traces of all the subsequent interventions. The interest is the layering, not a single coherent design.

Beyond that the record is silent. No plan, no elevation, no materials and no interior description is published in anything read for this page.

Nobody published how it was built, and the page will not supply it. The record gives no foundation date, no builder for the original structure and no materials — only that it existed at least from the early years of the fourteenth century.

The one named craftsman is the restorer. Giorgio Molinari, entrusted in 1462 by Giovanni I Del Carretto with the recovery project, who changed interiors and exteriors with a new staircase and intermediated bifore.

The second intervention has a patron but no architect. The internal spaces were revisited in 1781 with the interest of governor Giovanni Benedetto Centurione; no designer is named.

And the painting on the front outlived both. The fifteenth-century pictorial decorations are still there, alongside the marks of everything done since — which is unusual, and is the reason the building is worth stopping at.

Can I go inside?

Nothing read for this page says so. No present use, interior, opening hour, admission or contact is published for the building, by the comune or by anyone else. It should be treated as a facade to read from the street.

What makes the facade special?

That it was never cleaned up. The record calls it of great interest for carrying both the typical fifteenth-century pictorial decorations and the traces of all the subsequent interventions — the painting and every later alteration, legible together.

Who rebuilt it, and when?

Giorgio Molinari, in 1462, for the marquis Giovanni I Del Carretto. He modified interiors and exteriors, building a new staircase and opening intermediated bifore. The interiors were revisited again in 1781 under the Genoese governor Giovanni Benedetto Centurione.

What was it used for?

Government and justice. It was the seat of the Del Carretto government and afterwards the judicial and administrative centre of the Marquisate of Finale, and it had existed at least since the early fourteenth century.

Is this the same as the palazzo della Camera?

Yes — the basilica's record speaks of "the internal chapel of the palazzo della Camera (later palazzo del Tribunale)". It is not the same as Palazzo Cavasola, which the Finalborgo record calls the "casa della Camera": two similar names, two different buildings.

What happened to what was inside?

At least one thing is traceable. The painting of the Madonna between san Giovanni Battista and sant'Ippolito, with a dedicatory inscription of governor Diaz de Zamorano dated 1627, hung in the palace's internal chapel — where the Finale magistracies swore their oath — and is now in the left nave of San Biagio.