A structure at the site was first erected in the 16th century. Next to the villa still remains a deconsecrated chapel, dating back to the second half of the 18th century, and which is documented along the adjacent building in an eighteenth-century map by the cartographer of the
Republic of Genoa Matteo Vinzoni. By the end of the 19th century, the building was listed in the
Napoleonic Catasto as a "holiday building" or
vacation villa of Giuseppe fu Andrea Croce. The
Croce seem to be the descendants of the
Grimaldi. In 1931 the villa was sold to the Brizzolesi family who sold it in 1956 to the shipowners Fassio Tomellini, who would make major changes to the structure of the building, designed by the architect Luigi Carlo Daneri, including the creation of a new lounge with access to the park. The municipality of Genoa purchased the villa and the surrounding park (12,000 m2) from the latter owners in 1979. Since 1993, the villa became the museum to display the '
Frugone Collection (Raccolte Frugone), assembled during the late 19th and early 20th-centuries by the brothers Luigi and Lazzaro Giovanni Battista Frugone. The large rose garden, named the Viacava garden, displays about 800 varieties of different roses. It was restored and named after its creator in April 2012. ==Frugone Collection==