Il Palazzetto criminale di Genova. Da carcere giudiziario a sede degli archivi, le trasformazioni tra XIX e XX secolo

Starting from the first decade of the 19th century, a process of transformation of both material and use began for the Criminal Hall. The judicial prison dating back to the 16th century was dismantled and used as the seat of the Genoese archives. Throughout the century, work was carried out to adapt the building to accommodate kilometers of documents belonging to the Government Archives, the Notarial Archives and finally the Archive of the former Banco di San Giorgio. This essay, based on in-depth archival research, reconstructs the events linked to these transformations which had a profound impact on the building. In fact, if at the beginning of the 19th century it substantially retained the shape it had assumed at the end of the 16th century, within fifty years, two more floors were built, one due to the lowering of Via Tommaso Reggio by two meters and the other demolishing the roof terrace. In the 20th century the building suffered serious damage to the roofs and the turret following the bombing of Genoa on 9 February 1941 and the reconstruction took little account of the historical pre-existences.