Il porto antico di Genova

Luigi Speranza

No account pretending to place Genoa before its readers in all the aspects of the past would be complete without some account of a port which for more than seven hundred years has been famous, and is to-day one of the two most important harbours in the Mediterranean Sea.

From out of it have gone a train of victorious fleets with bellied sails and glistening oars to fight the battles of the mediaeval world; into it sailed the Pisans in picturesque defiance of the Republic, and a few days later nine thousand of them came back again in captivity, pinioned to the benches of their battered galleys after the battle of Meloria had been lost and won.

Into this harbour there came in the days after Venice had suffered a bitter defeat at Sapienza, a little galley, dancing lightly on the waves and flying the banner of St. Mark . . it landed a small party on the Molo Vecchio, and there, upon the stones of Genoa, Venetian money was struck with the impress of the winged lion as a sign of uttermost contempt.

Into this harbour sailed Pope Urban with the six rebellious cardinals in 1367, and by the margin of its waters five of them were strangled in the dark mysterious vaults of San Giovanni di Pre. Here Andrea D' Oria landed when he came to give his country liberty, or such a pretence of it as was possible. . and here, too, Gianluigi Fieschi weaved his half-executed plot against that liberty, and found death lying among the galleys.

Here Philip of Spain landed from his high-built galley with its five tiers of rowers. . here Andrea D' Oria gave his banquet to Charles V., and caused the silver and gold vessels to be cast into the sea. . and here, in 1684, stood a great French fleet, and bombarded the city into a smoking heap of ruins. Of all the great men of the Republic only Columbus is wanting, for Genoese though he was, it was under the flag of Spain that he made his discoveries, and it was Spain who reaped the reward.

Let us look back for a moment to the days when Genoa was a small town gathered into the neighbourhood of Sta. Maria del Castello, when there was neither Faro, nor Molo, nor Arsenal; when most of the bay was sand fringed, with vineyards and olive groves sloping gently down to the marge. The city enclosed within the new walls of 1159—built in frenzied haste against the second coming of Barbarossa—was so small that San Matteo, San Siro, and Sta. Maria delle Vigne were excluded from their protection; and the very name of the last, " Saint Mary of the Vineyards," speaks of pastoral quiet and rural pursuits. Westwards from this point there extended more vineyards and olive woods, traversed by a small rivulet of melted snows from the far hills; and where San Giovanni di Pre now stands an irregular patch of sand made a deep indentation into the pastures behind. History has forgotten when the church was first built, but it was there to shelter the ashes of St. John the Baptist when they reached Genoa in 1097, and long before it was called San Giovanni di Pre it had borne the name of "S. Johannes in capite arence" or "at the top of the sands."

It has been somewhat hastily concluded that the present name is an abbreviation of the word preda, meaning "booty," but there can be little doubt that its real significance is dei prati, or "of the fields," for the word figures in many forms in the poems written in dialect, and in every case the sense of it is undoubtedly "pastures, or fields."

"ed ao riundu U bagna i campi e i proi." 1 Sands and fields, a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and situated among the vines with a sparkling rivulet close by; such was once the spot now built over with tall warehouses and stores, and where the din of traffic never ceases. There were olive mills and orchards where the crazy vaults of Sottoripa stand to-day, and behind the newer arsenal stretched the vegetable gardens of San Tommaso and San Vittore.

When the grey weather-stained church of San Giovanni lay amid the sands there was a well beaten track leading thence to the Porta de' Vacca, and the little stream, emptying into the sea at a spot called the Bocca di B6, had to be crossed by stepping stones or fording, according to the season. But in 1162 the hand of man began the slow work of transformation, for the consuls of that year bought up the few houses that lay dotted about, constructed a small landing stage or scalo on the site of the Piazza dello Scalo by which it is still commemorated, and threw a primitive bridge over the stream. Very soon afterwards houses were built on the northern side of the path by those Genoese whose trading vessels came here to unlade;
(1 " And to the little stream which waters the meadows and fields.") and it took its name of Via di Pre while still the sea washed its southern edge.

The Darsena, or arsenal, was near the old and neglected church of San Marco on the neck of land which leads to the Molo Vecchio. It is first mentioned in 11 so1 and the necessity for acquainting mariners at sea with their whereabouts was early recognised, for in 1161 night signals were first made from the rock where the lighthouse stands by means of bonfires. The port, such as it was, probably lay under the neck just referred to, but was evidently exposed to the violence of the weather, as in 1245 a large part of the shipping was destroyed by a storm, and about fifteen years later the bay at this point was deepened by Marino Boccanegra and a wall built, the little basin being known as the Mandraccio. It is uncertain when the Molo Vecchio was begun . . even Spotorno fails to find any better authority than the Annals of Giustiniani, and says. . "Some have written that in 1283 the Molo of the harbour was commenced," and adds that under any circumstances a portion of it was completed in 1300. But Oliviero, the monkish architect of the Palazzo di San Giorgio, is said to have built a mole with piles and stones, and it is clear that some sort of a breakwater existed here before 1245, for in speaking of the storm Bartolomeo Scriba, an eyewitness, relates that "About midnight on Saturday the 17th of December a great storm broke over the harbour of Genoa, and a number of ships were driven ashore, some were sunk and many galleys and other vessels destroyed. The Molo was also broken down (Mogdulus quoque fractus fuit) and never has there been such a tempest within the (1 Malnate, Delia Sloria del Porto di Ccnova) memory of man.

When the body of St. John the Baptist and the True Cross of the Blessed Lawrence had been carried through the city with other relics, and thence down to the mole (ad partes Mogduli) and the sea shore, the storm abated, and the waves subsided."1

Before many years had passed the little arsenal proved inadequate for the growing trade of the city, and a new one was begun in 1215 on the exposed southern side of the Via di Pre. Not much was done, however, and for many years the new arsenal consisted of little more than a breakwater and a partial sea wall. Genoa was too deeply engaged in the duel with Pisa to have either time or money to devote to the continuance of the work; but when Tommaso Spinola defeated the Pisan fleet in 1283 and brought home booty to the value of 28,000 marks, the Republic immediately devoted 10,000 marks to the completion of the Darsena. Marino Boccanegra was the architect; and it speaks well for Genoese resourcefulness that while Boccanegra's masons were building the slips the ship-wrights of the city were hastily constructing the galleys which in the following year were to crush the enemy at Meloria.

The Molo was lengthened in 1283, and towers and fortifications were added to the Darsena in subsequent years, until in 1402 the defences were connected to the walls of the city at the Porta de' Vacca.

The Torre del Faro, or lighthouse, also called the "Lanterna," springs into history as Minerva did from the head of Jupiter, with a mighty clamour of war; (1 Spotorno, Storia Lellcraria, vol. i. p. 289 and vol. iii. appendix to vol. ii. p. 334. Giustiniani, Annali, sub 1283. Bartolomeo Scriba, in Rer. It. Script, vol. vi. sub 1245) for when first mentioned—in 1318—it is already fullgrown and valiantly defended by a few men against an army. These were the days when the Grimaldi and Fieschi held the city in the name of the Guelfs; and the Ghibelline Spinola and D' Oria, having seized Albenga and Savona, gathered their forces at Gavi, and assailed the walls from the Polcevera valley. The first obstacle in their path was the Torre della Lanterna, held by only seven men; and siege was laid to it with the utmost vigour. In spite of threats and assaults the devoted little garrison held out for two months against the whole strength of the Ghibellines, receiving ammunition and provisions at such times as they could be transported with safety. On dark nights a galley would steal out of the port, anchor under the rock, and throw a rope from mast to fortress, along which a basket was run with stores, and with messages of admiring encouragement from those in the city. Then rough weather set in, and no supplies were received; but still the seven held out, desperate and starving, watching the enemy whom they could no longer keep at a distance for lack of missiles, swarming round the base of the tower, and mining into the live rock beneath them. Day after day passed with no sign from the city; day after day saw the tunnel eating deeper into the foundations. At length one of the garrison crept out, and went to tell the Guelfs of their condition. It was too late; for the mining operations were complete, and the tower stood, and stood unsteadily, on wooden struts. Summoned to surrender, the remaining six asked and received permission to go back unmolested to Genoa; and worn with their unceasing labours, weak from want of food, the band of heroes crawled rather than says that "This tower, built by our forefathers and destroyed in 1 5 12 during the attack on the citadel of the Lanterna, was restored in the year of our Lord 1543 and in the sixteenth year of Renewed Liberty."1

With the exception of the building and destruction of the Briglia the harbour changed but little in appearance from the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The lengthy Molo Nuovo did not exist, and the older one was some hundreds of paces shorter than it is to-day. The one important work which was undertaken was done in 1416, during the dogate of the patriotic Tommaso Fregoso. The trend of the prevailing currents having clogged the new Darsena with a heavy deposit of sand, it became necessary to deepen the waterways, and the manner in which the work was carried out indicates that the ingenuity which had marked the Genoese at the siege of Jerusalem, had not deserted them. The mouth of the basin was sealed, probably with sheet piling, and an enormous wheel, 120 feet in diameter, built astride the dock. To it were attached twenty-seven large buckets (ciconee), and the huge machine was set in motion by a smaller wheel worked by ropes and cords, while between seven and eight hundred men were required daily to supply the motive power. A new scalo was constructed in 1457, especially designed for (1 "Anno A Chr1sto Nato C1c1cxl111 Rest1tut.* L1bkrtat1s An. XVI. 1nstaurata Torr1s H/bc Ol1m Structa A Ma1or1bus Nostr1s, Bt C1c1cx11 1n Oppugnat1one Arc1s Lanterns D1ruta." It is generally supposed that the work of 1543 is the upper tower, as the lighthouse really consists of two towers built one on the summit of the other, and each having complete machicolations. With regard to the words "16th year of Renewed Liberty" it may be added that events of importance were frequently dated from the year 1528 in which the city was liberated from the French yoke by Andrea D' Oria) building large galleys, and in 1596 the Darsena was brought to its present condition, except for the two gates, one near the Porta de' Vacca, and the other opposite the Piazza dello Scalo, which have since been removed.

The Molo Vecchio was repaired or increased in length by "a Sicilian architect named Anastasio" in 15091, in which year, by the way, the streets were first paved with bricks, "to the great ornament of the city." Alessi added another 600 paces to the Molo m 1553, and put the finishing touch to the work by erecting the Porta Siberia six years later at its landward end. This gate, in whose rugged strength lies its chief claim to beauty, was built so as to supply an elevated platform for heavy guns, placed there to protect the shipping in the inner harbour; and as its construction follows so closely on the Fieschi conspiracy, it is not too much to suppose that the gateway was erected partly so as to cope with similar risings. It was near this spot that the conspirators entered the harbour, and that Gianluigi Fieschi was drowned while attacking the D' Oria galleys.

In 1638 a new Mole was commenced upon the western side of the bay, the first stone being laid by the Doge with unusual pomp and circumstance, and for thirteen years the work was carried on without interruption until at length it was connected to the shore at the Capo di Faro. Modern enlargements and improvements have been many, but they do not concern us here. For our purpose the harbour was completed in 1651, and became a possession of such value that it attracted, as indeed it had always done, the envious glances of more powerful states. In later (1 This date, given by Giustiniani in the Annali, is disputed) days there were other fleets beside her own that sailed into Genoa's harbour.

And though the fleet of Louis XIV. did not at first enter the harbour in 1684, it took up a position extending from the Molo Vecchio to the mouth of the Bisagno on the east and battered the city for eleven days. The events which preceded this episode have already been mentioned, so that it only remains to speak of the havoc wrought by the French guns.

On May 17th, 1684, the hostile fleet of 14 ships, 3 frigates, 20 galleys1 10 palindre and 100 ammunition, provision and fire ships approached the city under the command of the Marquis de Seignelai. Seignelai sent a herald ashore with the French demands, and gave the Senate five hours in which to decide. Terror and curiosity had meanwhile seized upon the Genoese, and while some fled there were many who took up positions on the walls to watch the course of events. As the five hours wore on the suspense grew almost intolerable, and the palindre were seen to be approaching perilously near to the line beyond which no foreign ship was allowed to pass. Suddenly a puff of smoke spurted from one of the land forts as the first raft passed the line, and high up in the Torre del Comune the great bell swung frantically to summon the guards to their posts. The enemy were not slow to reply, and by a strange coincidence the first shell struck the house of France's ambassador, shattering it like a house of cards. Another shell fell on the crowded ramparts at Santa (1 The broad distinction between a ship and a galley is that the former was square rigged while the latter had lateen, or triangular sails of the type still to be seen in the Mediterranean. The palindre were simply rafts on each of which was placed a heavy mortar for throwing bombs) Maria della Grazie, killing four of the gazers and mutilating twice as many more.

Naturally enough, the Palazzo Ducale became the chief target, and in a few moments it was struck and set on fire, burning furiously for several days. The Senate retired to the Albergo di Carbonaro, taking with them the treasure from the Bank of San Giorgio and the ashes of St. John the Baptist under a strong Spanish escort, just as the rabble broke loose and began to plunder the churches and palaces, intensifing the confusion which reigned in the city. It was practically useless to return the fire of the enemy, and most of the militia was employed in shooting down the looters at sight, leaving the corpses where they fell as a warning to their fellows. Four days passed without any diminution of the bombardment, and already the Quartiere di Pre, the Strada Nuova, the churches of St. Ambrogio and St. Agostino, the Porto Franco and the Palazzo Ducale were half in ruins. Tongues of flame leapt into the air on all sides, and above the city hung a dense pall of smoke.

At the end of the fourth day Seignelai sent in a message of the following tenor . . he was horrified at the damage which had been wrought by the 6000 bombs already fired, and the Genoese had better consider what would be the result if they persisted in their obstinacy, and obliged him to use the other 10,000 projectiles which were still in his magazines. He gave the Senate until ten o'clock on the following morning to make their decision. But the Signoria replied that they could not deliberate under the threat of renewed hostilities; and once more the terrible storm of shot and shell began, lasting until May 28th, when Seignelai, having emptied his lockers into the heroic city, sailed back to Provence. 13,300 bombs had been hurled at the walls, 2000 out of the 6000 houses and palaces had been struck and half of these were entirely destroyed.1

The city appeared as if an earthquake had shattered it . Most of the streets and piazze were choked with the debris of masonry and splintered beams; and in many places there remained nothing but a heap of smoking cinders. The water pipes supplying the public wells were broken and the drains impeded by broken fragments, so that here and there noisome streams trickled down the narrow passageways and formed into foul-smelling pools whenever an obstruction was encountered. In other parts these streams mingled with the ashes and oozed in a black sluggish mass into the basements of the houses. In some districts the desolation was rendered more terrible by the stench from numerous fires, and the sight of the mangled victims of the bombs.2

Disasters such as these, happily for Genoa, were not of frequent occurrence, and it was rarely that the Campana Grossa was rung except as a warning of a popular rising of greater or less magnitude. On these occasions the proceedings were marked by an old world picturesqueness rather than by deeds of blood. The chief cause of these disturbances was generally some truculent noble, who in modern parlance, "resisted the law." One instance will suffice for them all. On the 27th of November, 1330, the Governor captured a robber who had sought refuge in (1 Casoni, Storia del Bombardamento di Genova nelP anno Mdclxxxiv, says that 16,000 bombs were fired, of which 8000 fell within the city. A fragment of one of them is preserved in the Palazzo Bianco)2Casoni, op. cit. p. 210) the house of the Cattanei, or Malloni, and these good gentlemen, considering themselves affronted by his action, promptly collected their adherents and effected a rescue. On the following day the Governor and the Abbate, being desirous of proceeding against the delinquents, caused the Great Bell of the Commune to be sounded, and the populace rapidly assembled under arms before the Palazzo. The Cattanei, expecting reprisals, sent about the city to collect their partisans, appointing the Piazza di San Giorgio as a rendezvous. While the Abbate and citizens moved into the open space before San Lorenzo and unfurled the Standard of the Republic in a highly business-like manner, the rebels were hastily putting garrisons into the houses and towers and barricading the streets.

The Abbate, having duly caused a taper to be ignited and set before him, the Governor then despatched a messenger to the Cattanei to inform them that unless eight of the chief of their number presented themselves in the Piazza di San Lorenzo before the taper had burnt out he should command the men under arms to open the attack. The impatient multitude, however, could not be restrained until the time had elapsed, and before the sputtering candle was half consumed they moved off in a body and assailed the barricades. The defenders were prepared, and such a hail of projectiles was poured from the houses that the citizens retired in confusion; and the Cattanei might have held out successfully had it not been rumoured that the Fieschi and Grimaldi were preparing to reinforce their assailants.

The Piazza di San Giorgio, now almost lost amid the narrow streets of the old town, was at the period of this event, the chief business centre of Genoa, and it is uncertain when the change to the Piazza de' Banchi took place.

The church is scarcely visited save by sightseers who come to see the reputed masterpiece of Luca Cambiaso, the Martyrdom of St. George; and the only signs of activity are to be seen in the early morning, when a few vegetable and fruit sellers spread their wares on the silent stones and fall peacefully asleep in the sun beside them.

But the scene in the other Piazza is different. From morning to night the square and the street leading down to the Piazza Caricamento are thronged with business men who embody the modern commercial activity of Genoa. From the open windows of the Borsa, which though attributed to Alessi was not begun until 1 570, two years after he had left the city, comes the hum of many voices with the occasional tinkle of a bell; and the flight of steps leading up to the red curtained door of San Pietro Banchi forms a pleasant out-door office, which is shared by stock brokers and beggars. There is little of interest within the church, and its mouldering walls seem sadly out of place. Taddeo Carlone was the architect of it in 1579, and it was built during a lull in the plague as a thank-offering for its supposed cessation. It is to the credit of the Genoese that though the plague continued its ravages they kept their part of the bargain and completed the structure, employing G. B. Baiardo, who died in the later plague of 1657, to decorate the arched portico with frescoes which are now almost obliterated. There is a presepio within by Paggi and frescoes of little merit by Ansaldo, together with the earliest works of P. G. Piola—in the spandrils of the dome—and several statues by Taddeo Carlone, among them the Zacchariah and Elizabeth which will be referred to at greater length in another chapter.

At the corner of the Piazza Caricamento, facing the Palazzo di San Giorgio, is the old residence of the Adorni family, now a hotel, and over the arches of Sottoripa there are the palaces of Genoa's chief merchants. This is the part which suffered most from the Spaniards in 1422, an event foreshadowed by a thunderbolt striking the campanile of San Lorenzo and by blood-red snow which fell on the mountains. It is described in the pathetic "Lamento de Zena," beginning..—

"Zena son la tribulata posta in pianti e amari doli Milan Franza e Spagnoli mhafio tutta insanguinata Zena son."1 and describing how the city was overrun, and palaces, shops and booths were looted by Peschiera's army. "The crying of my women was heard by Varazzo's walls," and the velvet and brocades snatched from the warehouses in Piazza de' Cigala alone were valued at a hundred thousand crowns.

It would be a hopeless task to describe all the events that set the harbour round, and they would fill a volume by themselves. There is the Porta de'

1 " Genoa am I, the cruelly oppressed, Deep my grief and bitter is my pain Since Milan, France and foeman out of Spain Have robbed and left me sore distressed . . Genoa am I." This beautiful poem of fifty-eight verses, entitled "Opera e Lamento de Zena che tracta de la guerra; et del saccho. dato per li Spagnoli. A li xxx di de Magio. Nel Mccccxx11," is published in the Atti della See. Lig. di Stor. Pat. vol. ix. Each verse ends with the plaintive refrain of "Zena son."

Vacca speaking of Barbarossa's visits; the Piazza Vacchero, where the house of the traitor stood and was palled down when he was caught and executed in 1628, with an inscription of infamy marking the spot; there are the fleets which came and went and are gone for ever; and gone, too, are the memories of those light-hearted fishermen and sailors who went down to their boats singing love-songs to Minetta or to Zanina. . always lovesick, sometimes happy, but generally dejected; as Cavalli must have been when he sang with delightful philosophy ;—

"A beautiful vine where the grapes are few; That's what I think of Love !"1 or Paolo Foglietta—" Poro " as his friends called him in their kindly dialect—as he penned the despairing sonnet which begins, " Se questa e' neive che ven da ro

"If this be the snow which is sent from above As its whiteness would seem to proclaim, Then why has it power to send such a flame As scorches my soul into love? If this be a statue on pedestalled feet As its coldness would make me believe, Then how can it walk if no daughter of Eve, And stab at my heart when we meet? But if 'tis a woman of earth's common clay—

And it is, I am fully persuaded—.

There's nothing more sweet in Dame Nature's display,

1 " Bella vigna, e poc' uga! Diggo a Amo." See Cittara Zeneize di Gian-Giacomo Cavalli, collected and published in 1745. These sonnets throw more light on the life of the Genoese than all the historical writers put together.

Beside her the Goddess of Beauty seems faded, (Her face sweeter still would appear, by the way, Did a cold stony stare not pervade it 1)1 But the harbour of Genoa now presents a different scene. The high-built galleons which bore the D' Oria admirals to victory have been succeeded by the stately liners of the North German Lloyd, the Navigazione Generale Italiana and other great shipping companies. Venice and Pisa, her old-time rivals have long ceased to contend with her, and the battle for supremacy is being fought out between the modern ports of Genoa and Marseilles. The Italy of to-day is striving to make her great harbour the most important on the Mediterranean, and she bids very fair to succeed. Thirty years or so ago the patriotic Duca di Galliera

1 With regard to the Genoese dialect, Ramusio pleasantly observes that in his day the Genoese were in the habit of writing always in Latin because the alphabet would prove unequal to the strain imposed upon it by the dialect as pronounced in Genoa and along the Riviere. Certainly it is not as mellifluous as the "lingua toscana in bocca romana," but that it has its own claims to beauty is shown by the original of the sonnet just quoted.

"Se questa e neive, che ven da ro Ce, Comme a ro so gianche9Ca vei me pa, Comme diavo ghe poeu drento sta Ro foeugo, chi me bruxa si crude? Se 1' e un marmaro gianco drito in pe Comme ra so durecca poeu mostra, Comme diavo falo a camina E a tira frecce comme un barestre Ma se 1' e donne pu de carne e d' osse, In terra, comme a p& ben ho certecca Che vei ciu bella cosa no se posse; Che 1' e ciu bella dra mesma belief;

E ciu bella sareiva, s' a no fosse

Ciu dura ancora dra mcsma durec9a."

placed half a million sterling at the disposal of the government for the improvement of the port, and since then three millions and more have been expended with the same object. Italy's hopes run high now that the Simplon has been pierced. Through this new line of communication with the north she hopes to secure for herself much of the carrying trade for India and the East, and Genoa is the focus for all eyes that are looking to the development of modern commercial enterprise.

Pisa and Venice perforce must live in the past . . Genoa, like the fabled Phcenix, arises once more from her own ashes.