The palace was built between 1494 and 1505 on pre-existing medieval buildings in the Fossatello area, standing at the crossroad of important road axis. An impressive marble portal, sculpted by Michele and Antonio Carlone in 1503, is nowadays hosted at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London.

In 1540 cardinal Cipriano Pallavicini, an important learned man, asked for permission to renew his dwelling place in Fossatello. On that occasion it was possible to get to a remarkable broadening and regularization of the boundary of the square.

Cardinal Cipriano Pallavicini wanted to adhere to a project Donato Bramante had made for a Roman palace, displaying showrooms on the ground floor and a private dwelling on the upper floors. 

The ground floor and the mezzanine share a massive rustic ashlar on the façade. The windows are inserted inside an architectural framework defined by Doric elements.

Passed over to the Grillos and then to the Saporitis in 1700s, in 1840 the mansion’s property finally got to Federico Rayper, supplier of the Sardinian Royal Navy, who completely renewed its architectural structure in order to get several apartments to be rented: that was the moment the building was given the front in the neoclassical style which still overlooks the square in present days.