At the back of the palace is the grave of Andrea's dog, Roldano, given to him by Charles V., and over it is the following epitaph, or something like it: "Here lies the Great Roldano, a dog belonging to Prince Gio. Andrea Doria, who, for his fidelity and goodness, was considered to merit this memorial. In life, for years, he nobly obeyed both these laws. In death we must place his ashes by the side of those of the beast that perishes. A companion worthy indeed of his regal donor. Died at 11 years and 10 months of age, in September of 1605, the 8th day, at 8 o'clock at night."
In the centre of the garden, facing the sea, and from whence Prince Doria may have looked on his fleet of twenty-two galleys at anchor in the harbor, is a fountain, and in it a statue in which he is represented as Neptune. Doria's tomb is in the crypt beneath the high altar of the church of San Matteo, and it is here also that the sword he received, in 1535, from Paul III., for the services he had rendered the church, is deposited. In the piazza adjoining there is a house with an inscription over it, to the effect that it was given to Andrea Doria by the republic. Here he once lived, and it was in an open square in front of it that he assembled his fellow-citizens to consult with them on the best way of repulsing the French, when they besieged Genoa in 1528. The house is now used as a shop,--for pictures and old furniture on the ground floor, and for stationery on the upper story. It, and the church of San Matteo, which has always been under the patronage of the Dorias, are both built of alternate layers of black and white marble. This magpie style of construction was confined to public edifices, but four patrician families--the Doria, Grimaldi, Spinola, and Fieschi--were allowed the privilege of using it....
If Genoa is a fair city by day, she is a still fairer one by night, when the innumerable lights on all sides make it look as if the stars had come down from heaven, and give the whole place an appearance of fairy-land. There are lights all round the harbor and on the quays; lights above the hills, and below in the old town; lights in the gardens of the cafés and in the streets, making them, and the gay company that crowds them, more brilliant than when seen in the full glare of mid-day. The fireflies flit and flicker, but never rest as they hold their evening revels among the bushes and trees, and over the grass and flowers.