Vincenzo Spinola

Vincenzo Spinola was born in 1752, the only son of Domenico Spinola (1717 – 1753) and Benedetta Serra (1727 -?). Vincenzo or Vincenzino, as he was called in the family, descended from the Spinola branch of San Luca, and belonged to the feudal branch of Camoligure. He remained orphaned of his father at little more than a year old. His mother, Benedetta Serra, descended from the Serra family of Porta dei Vacca.
His grandmother Barbara Baliano, wife of Vincenzo Spinola, remained a widow in 1743 and in 1753 her son Domenico died prematurely.  The mother of Barbara, Antonia Veneroso, wife of Carlo Baliano, put order in the hereditary Baliano axis, appointing her daughter Barbara as heir and establishing a fideicommissum the benefit of her great-grandson Vincenzo, son of the late Domenico and Benedetta Serra.
After the death of Antonia Veneroso and Barbara Baliano, in 1760 Vincenzo Spinola still a child inherited the real estate empire of the Baliano family that included: A palazzo placed in the Maruffi district (current Canneto il Lungo) with houses and shops near Piazza Nuova, A palazzo and a villa in Carignano, near the monastery of San Leonardo, and a house with garden, shops and grounds outside the door of Santo Stefano (gate of the arches) in the vicinity of the Church of Santo Spirito (in the present area of San Vincenzo). The legacy of Vincenzino also included that of his grandfather Vincenzo, who had left him a rural palazzo in Santa Maria della Castagna a Quarto, including furnishings and a rich painting collection.
Still infant, he was entrusted to the protection of his grandmother Barbara Baliano and Mother, Benedetta Serra, with the help of Abbot Francesco de Mari and of the uncles Domenico and Gio Carlo Serra. When he became an adult and moved to the Palazzo of Carignano with its beautiful and large villa, the representative residence allowed him to organize parties and receptions, inviting the best of the Genoese nobility. Among his illustrious guests he was able to include Giuseppina Bonaparte, on the occasion of her short stay that the future Empress of the French was granted in Genoa, between the end of November and the beginning of December 1796. For the arrival in Genoa of the illustrious guest, the French Minister Plenipotentiary Guglielmo Carlo Faipoult de la Maisoncelle, friend of Bonaparte, had made the seat of the Legation of France available, which was in Genoa in the Spinola palazzo, overlooking a small square called Spinola (in the current area of Piazza Fontane Marose). On 1 December 1796, Vincenzo Spinola, as Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Genoa in Paris, welcomed the illustrious guest in his palazzo delle Mura of Carignano.
It is not excluded that in 1815, Vincenzo hosted Pope Pius VII, when he came from Savona after the long exile imposed by Napoleon, while returning to Rome. If he was not his guest, it is certain that Spinola met the Pope in Genoa to, as Vincenzo wrote in his own codicillo, make him do “the portrait of the immortal Pius VII, commissioned by me while he was here in Genoa in 1815”.
In the course of his life, Vincenzo lived serenely and in maturity he had the family archive reorganized in order to document the origin of his many properties, reports ordered and transcribed in a libretto of 1789. A sort of ledger in which Vincenzo listed the history of each of the buildings he inherited.
Vincenzo Spinola remained unmarried and having no direct descendants decided to leave his enormous patrimony, to be divided in equal parts, to his four cousins, sons of Giacomo Serra: the Palazzo di Via Canneto il Lungo at number 31, a house for the holidays in Cornigliano, Real estate in La Spezia, the palazzo of Carignano with villa and houses, a body of houses in Albaro, real estate in Campo Freddo (today Campo Ligure), Roussillon and Parodi Ligure, land in the municipalities of Pieve Ligure and Portovenere, woods in Apparizione and Torriglia.
Vincenzo Spinola died in the palace of Carignano on November 4, 1829 at the age of 77 and asked to be buried in the Church of the priests of the Mission of Fassolo.

The text is entirely taken with the permission of the author from an article by Dr. Armando of Raimondo “Il palazzo di villa di Gio. Batta Baliano a Genova. Batta Baliano in Genoa. The legacy of the Doge Bernardo Clavarezza”. In particolar “Vincenzo Spinola” page 17 -21.  Published on http://www.iisl.genova.it/mwa/content/structured/10/11/attachments/Villa Baliano.pdf
In the photo the Spinola Service of 1797, ordered by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Marquis Vincenzo Spinola, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Genoa to the French.