Lecture 1: From the origin of Genoa to the end of the consular period in 1190

Luigi Speranza

I must preface this course of lectures with a few words of explanation.

I do not pretend to give a connected summary, however brief, of the history of Genoa, it being almost impossible to compress the contents of several centuries into a few hours, to say nothing of the difficulty of making such an abridgement in any way clear or interesting.

What I am going to do- is simply to bring before you, -as far as possible in order of date, with the help of the buildings or monuments which meet our eye in the streets, a succession of Mems., so to speak, on the annals of the Republic, hardly more than allusions to men who have lived or to events that have happened, but which I hope may have the effect of awakening some amount of interest in the subject and starting you on the intention of working it up for yourselves.

I class my remarks on Genoa as an independent State under five sections, the first to include all the early and more or less trustworthy records and traditions until we get on firm ground just about eight centuries ago, the other four sections to correspond with as many main periods of the history of the Republic. These periods are; first, the Consular from 1080 to 1190, when the Genoese governed themselves and were thoroughly successful in all they undertook.

Second, the period of the Podesta, when the supreme power was handed over to an outsider in order to put an end to the jealousies of the chief families as to being named consuls.

Third, that beginning with the election of the first Doge and extending from 1339 t0 1528 during which the town was constantly under foreign rule; and the fourth and last, that which, although promising well at the outset owing to the final deliverance in 1528 by Andrea Doria of the town from French dominion, comprises the gradual decay of the state until the Great Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century brought about its extinction.


In an additional lecture which comes at the end of the course I speak of Genoa, first under Napoleonic rule, then handed over to Sardinia by the Congress of Vienna and finally raised to the proud position of the first seaport of United Italy.

To begin with the origin of Genoa.

All I can say is that it is so obscure that not even the most laborious of the local historians have attempted to fix a date to it.

There is indeed an inscription in the Cathedral which assigns to the town an antiquity very little short of the Deluge.

For it states that

«Janus a Trojan prince skilled «in Astrology, while navigating to seek a healthy « permanent and safe place to dwell in came to « Genoa already founded by Janus, King of Italy, «Great Grandson Of Noah , and perceiving it « to be very safe by reason of the mountains, « he endowed the town with his nam.' and his « power. »

This somewhat startling piece of information stands chronicled in large letters on the top of the arches of the nave of San Lorenzo, but it is generally considered to be more remarkable for boldness of assertion than for historical accuracy, and indeed the Genoese writers are almost unanimous in seeking to excuse the manifest absurdity of the inscription on the score of the credulity of the time — beginning of the fourteenth century — when it was put up.

The Ligurians who founded Genoa, certainly several centuries before Christ, appear to have been originally Celts coming from Gaul, and the name of the city probably comes from the Latin Janus or Gate, this port as it grew in importance getting known as the Sea Gate for Western North Italy.

The other derivation of the name from the god "Janus" finds, however, many supporters, and is in fact adopted by the town authorities, as may be seen by the double-faced head appearing on the lamp posts, memorial tablets on the walls in the streets, and so on.

Passing from tradition to fact, the oldest historical monument in Genoa is the well-known bronze tablet discovered about the year 1500 in a field near Genoa, which can be inspected at the Municipio and which bears a date corresponding to 290 B. C.

The inscription on the tablet states that two jurists Q. M. Minutius and Q. F. Rufus, were sent from Rome to settle a dispute as to boundaries betwen the Genoese and their neighbours, thus showing how important the town must already have been.

Another proof of the importance of Genoa in those early times may be found in the fact of Mago, brother of Hannibal, having ravaged it with his fleet about a hundred years later in revenge for the Ligurians having allied themselves with Rome.

The metal beak of one of Mago's galleys used to be preserved in the Arsenal here, but was removed by the Government, after the annexation, to the Museum of Turin, where I believe it is still to be seen.

After the close of the Punic Wars, the Romans, flushed with success and eager for more territory, determined to annex Liguria, but they met with a most obstinate resistance and had to to carry on a long and bloody war before obtaining their object.

Liguria once conquered remained a Roman province until the fall of the Empire, and although there is unfortunately no monument now standing as a record of the period, we can trace in different parts of the town fragments of architecture testifying to the former existence of buildings in the best Roman style.

If, for instance, you will examine the arches over the main doors of the churches of SS. Cosimo and Damiano, of S. Donato and of S. Maria di Castello, you will in each case be struck by the appearance of the architrave, which, although entirely out of keeping with its surroundings, is in itself rich and massive and can only have formed part of a building at once ornate and impressive.

Shortly after the coming of our Lord, Genoa was converted to Christianity by the two Saints, Nazarus and Celsus, who, flying from the persecution at Rome under Nero, landed at Albaro about the year 50 on the strip of beach at the end of the lane which at the present time bears the name of S. Nazaro and which is well known to most residents here.

A church now disused, of which the tall and slender tower forms a conspicuous landmark, crowns the rock overhanging the spot where the saints landed, and it is said to have been built on the site of a temple to Venus.

The new faith apparently took at once firm root in Genoa seeing that, as early as the third century, we hear of churches being built in honour of Christian Martyrs.

For example, the Church of S. Sixtus in the Via Pre is reported to occupy the site of a building raised in 260 to commemorate the passage through Genoa of the pope and martyr of that name who perished in the persecution under Valerian a year after.

S. Sixtus was accompanied by S. Laurence who was also martyred at the same time, and it seems probable that for him also a chapel was erected on the site of the present cathedral.

We may also find a proof of the strong religious bias of the Genoese in the fact of the principal local authority during the early centuries of the Christian Era and up to the time of the Consular Government being in the hands of the bishops.

These bishops are stated to have held their residence in the old Castello situated in the most ancient part of the town , between the Church of S. Maria di Castello and the Piazza Sarzano.

The Castello was destroyed in the second half of the fourteenth century in the course of one of the many fights between Guelphs and Ghibellines, and no trace of it is now to be seen, but the shape of the building has been preserved in the Hall mark of silver under the Republic, the three towers with the highest in the middle, which any one who has had occasion to handle old Genoese plate will remember.

You will find a curious record of the times of the Bishops, on a house between the side door of the church of S. Siro and the Via S. Luca, in a Latin inscription which sets forth that « There was the site of the well from which the most blessed Sirus drew out the dreadful serpent named Basilisk in the year 580. »

There has naturally been no want of conjecture or research on the part of the local writers as to the amount of truth connected with this episode in S. Sirus's life, and the conclusion they have mostly come to is that it a myth or rather an allegory.

The serpent would appear to be simply a pestilential heretic, probably an Arian, who poisoned the faithful with his false doctrine and whom S. Sirus succeeded in drawing out of his stronghold of darkness and expelling from the neighbourhood.

In the Church of S. Siro may be seen in the choir a fresco painting of the Saint and the serpent done in the early part of the seventeenth century by Giambattista Carlone, one of the most esteemed Genoese artists, who is reported to have taken shelter in the church to escape the hands of justice, as he had killed a man in a quarrel, and the monks took advantage of his compulsory stay within their walls to secure the services of his brush.

Needless to say that the present building is very much more modern than the Saint, in fact it dates only from 1600 or so when the order of Theatine monks were installed in the church and entirely rebuilt it.

The old church however, under the name of the Twelve Apostles, can be traced back as far as the fourth or fifth century, and it ranked as the Church of the Bishops until the second half of the tenth century, when the fear of the Saracens induced the Bishops to transfer their ecclesiastical seat to the Church of S. Lorenzo on the site of the present cathedral which had the advantage of being inside the line of walls that had just been constructed.

In the year 568 , shortly after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west, the Lombards, as you are aware, invaded North Italy under Alboin taking possession of the Province to which they gave their name, and a record of this event is preserved to us in the church of S. Ambrose, the original foundation of which dates back to the flight from Milan, for fear of the Lombards, ot the Archbishop and most of the clergy , who sought refuge in Genoa, were given some land and built upon it a church in honour of their patron saint.

This church stood for fully a thousand years, having been only demolished in 1587 to make room for the present building which the Jesuits constructed for their own use, and which they occupied until their expulsion from Genoa about forty years ago.

The Milanese clergy returned to Milan after seventy years residence in Genoa, the Lombard kings having become converts to Christianity and showing themselves favourably disposed towards the ministers of religion.

Their conversion, however, apparently in no way checked their appetite for conquest, as King Rotaris twenty or thirty years after the return of the Milanese marched down to Genoa at the head of an army, sacked the town and annexed it to his kingdom of which it remained a part until the overthrow of the Lombards by Charlemagne at the end of the eighth century.

An interesting episode of the period of Lombard dominion in Genoa is the passage through the town of the ashes of S. Augustine.

I mean of course the Bishop of Hippo , not the S. Augustine sent by Gregory the Great to England. These ashes had been brought about the year 500 from Africa to Cagliari in Sardinia by the then Bishop of Hippo who had been forced to migrate along with many other Christian priests in order to escape the persecution of the Vandals.

The ashes remained undisturbed in Sardinia for upwards of two centuries when the invasion and conquest of the island by the Saracens threatened the precious relics with desecration, and the Lombard king reigning at the time, Luitprand, who was not only a good Catholic but no doubt specially attached to the memory of St. Augustine owing to the connection with the patron saint of Milan, St. Ambrose, at once took steps to place the remains in safety.

Having ransomed them at a high price from the Saracens they were brought in the year 725 to Genoa, and after being exhibited for some days to the people were carried across the Appenines to Pavia, to be laid in a tomb which was discovered in 1695, and it is reported that the silver urn containing the ashes was then found in it. King Luitprand came down to Genoa to receive the ashes which are stated by some writers to have been displayed in a chapel on the site of the present disused church of S. Agostino, that fine specimen of early Lombard architecture of which the spire as seen from Piazza Sarzano makes such a striking effect.

After the extinction of the Lombard power by Chalemagne Genoa belonged nominally to the Holy Roman Empire, but in consequence ot the dissensions that broke out among the great king's successors, and also probably owing to its secluded position as regarded land communication , the city was left pretty much to itself; rather too much so in fact, as it suffered terribly at the close of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth centuries at the hand of the Saracens who were at that time masters of the Mediterranean. In the year 936 the town was sacked and half the population taken prisoner by then.

A great change for the better in the fortunes of the State took place in the second half of the tenth century, when Otho the Great, Emperor of Germany, through his marriage with Adelaide, widow of Lothair, was named King of Italy , and threw himself actively into the reorganization of his new territory.

With the ability that characterised him Otho perceived that the different Italian states, being so cut off from the centre of the empire, could only be made capable of defence against foreign enemies by the development through a liberal form of government of their internal resources , and in Genoa, partly by weakening the power of the neighbouring feudal nobles who were beginning to exercise pressure on the town, and partly by encouraging the milder sway of the local Bishops, he did much to lay the foundations of the future prosperity and greatness of the city.

Almost immediately after the time of Otho the Genoese began to break the supremacy of the Saracens on the sea, and there exists a memorial of their successes in the Via di Pre , in the shape of a small Turk's head in marble which is let into the corner of the house that stands over the shop No. 145 where the Vico dei Macellai comes into the street. Tradition says that this head is the portrait of the Saracen king Museto, who ruled in Sardinia and was dislodged thence in the year 1015 by the combined efforts of the Pisans and Genoese, being afterwards brought captive to Genoa and sent to Germany as an offering to the emperor.

It would of course be hard to prove that the marble head we now see is like Museto, and it may never have been intended for him, but in any case it stands as a decidedly interesting record of the growing power of Genoa in the period preceding the change to the Consular form of government.

It was about this time, say about the year 1000, that the first occupation took place by the Genoese of Corsica, that island which holds such a prominent part in the history of the Republic , of which the possession, so far from proving a source of strength and riches to the state, caused, on the contrary, constant sacrifices of blood and money.

The only gain that Genoa appears to have obtained from Corsica is the empty one of assuming in the seventeenth century , in consequence of her sovereignty over the island, kingly honours for her doge; while, with the irony of fate, it was a Corsican , Napoleon Buonaparte, who eighty years ago finally conquered Genoa and extinguished her last spark of independent power.

I will add to this first and introductory section a reference to the topography of the town in the tenth century, although there is really very little to say on the subject, almost everything we now see being of later date.

There are, however, two fragments remaining of the line of walls built shortly after the great sack of the town by the Saracens in 936 , one of them in Piazza Sarzano, the other at the back of a blacksmith' s siiop in the Via Indoratori.

This line of walls starting from the gate of S. Andrea descended to the square where the Opera now stands, across the site of the ducal palace , down Campetto and on to Banchi, round by Piazza S. Giorgio to S. Maria di Castello and Piazzo Sarzano where it joined on to the S. Andrea gate. The immediate neighbourhood of S. Maria di Castello and Piazza Sarzano is quite the most ancient part of the town, and was surrounded by a still older line of walls, but their date is not known. Some portions of these early walls, such as for instance the Gate of S. Andrea, were incorporated into the more extended line built in the twelfth century of which I shall speak later on.

We now come to the First Period of Genoese history proper , the Consular , extending from 1080 when the power was first given to the consuls to 1190 when it was most unwisely transferred to a foreign Podesta. 1 his period , although the least in point of time of the four that I have named, is quite the most remarkable as well as the most prosperous in the history of the Republic. In these 11o years Genoa grew from a town only just able to preserve herself from pirates into a state almost mistress of the Mediterranean. The important share taken in the Crusades, especially in the first, the victories over the Moors in Spain , the successful stand against Barbarossa , the conquest of the two Riviere from Nice to Spezia are proofs of the power of the Genoese in the twelfth century; while the number and beauty of the buildings of the period bear equal testimony to the rapid accumulation of the people's wealth.

With regard to the Crusades they have a special connecting link with Genoa, since it was from here that Godfrey de Bouillon, going to Jerusalem as a private pilgrim , set sail in 1095 in the galley of which the name « Pomella » is preserved to us. De Bouillon having, as you will perhaps remember, got his face slapped at the door of the Holy Sepulchre, in consequence of his having forgotten his purse and wanting to get in without payment, returned to Europe burning for vengeance against the Turks , and he found Pope Urban II, who had already been worked upon by Peter the Hermit, holding a council at Clermont for the express purpose of organizing an expedition to put a stop to the indignities offered in the Holy Land to the Christians. Godfrey's presence and story at once settled the question, the first Crusade under his leadership was decreed by the Pope, the famous cry of «Dieu le veult» filled the air and ecclesiastics were sent in all directions to preach the Holy War. Two of these, the bishops of Gratz and Arles , came to Genoa and addressed the inhabitants in the church of San Siro with such effect that an expedition was immediately agreed to, and a fleet carrying many of the foremost citizens sailed from these shores in 1097.

As you all know, a great many hard things have been said of the Genoese with reference to their attitude in the Crusades, and it has been more than hinted that, whereas their brothers in arms sacrificed equally limbs and fortunes and as a rule came back from Palestine full of wounds and debts, the Genoese on the contrary made rather a practice of returning home with sound skins and well lined pockets. I don't presume to discuss the question but I think that one may allow that they went at all events into the first Crusade not as merchants but as Christians, and this point may be all the more readily conceded as they could not possibly have known at that time what a good thing was before them, quite apart from battles, in the mere victualling and transport of the combatants. Anyhow they began by fighting, and fought well. The Genoese contingent on landing in Syria found the allied forces engaged in the siege of Antioch, and they rendered them such efficient help that the town was at once taken. The Genoese returned home leaving an excellent account of themselves, but one regrets to have to state that on their way back they stopped at the town of Myrra in Licia and carried oft from a Greek monastery the ashes of S. John the Baptist, which are preserved to this day in the cathedral and constitute the most precious relic that Genoa has ever possessed. There is nothing said as to compensation being given to the poor monks who must have felt some degree of melancholy surprise at such treatment on the part of the wearers of the Cross.

Another and larger force left for the Holy Land in the following year 1099 under the command of Guglielmo Embriaco, that Genoese captain whose name stands out as prominently in the annals of the time as his own tower — the wellknown Torre degli Embriaci, that dark, square, slender building which is such a familiar object to all residents — does among the dense mass of houses in the old town. Embriaco landed at Joppa, burnt his ships, either to prevent them falling into the hands of the enemy or to increase the determination of his men, and marched on Jerusalem of which the siege had been for some time conducted by the Crusaders with but indifferent success, the height and strength of the walls proving an apparently insuperable obstacle. The Genoese at once came to the fore with that m> chanical talent which would seem to be innate in them, and of which you can at the present time see evidences in the singularly neat and ingenious scaffolding of the houses in course of construction in the town. With the ropes and timbers that had been saved from the ships, Embriaco and his men built a high moveable scaffold which they pushed in spite of the enemies' resistance close up to the walls, and from the top of this engine the Crusaders were able to rush down on the ramparts and overpower the garrison. After the taking of Jerusalem Embriaco returned to Genoa but soon came back to Palestine to place his sword at the disposal of the newly elected king, Godfrey de Bouillon, and in 11oi he achieved his crowning feat of arms by capturing with unassisted Genoese forces and after a most obstinate resistance the town of Cesarea. Here the booty that fell to the Genoese was something enormous. The expedition came home in triumph, laden with spoil, Embriaco bringing as his own share and as an offering to the Church the famous Catino, or basin of green glass, still to be seen in the T reasury of San Lorenzo. This basin was held in immense estimation, not only from being long reputed to consist of a single emerald, but still more from a tradition attached to it of being the Holy Grail itself, the dish out of which our Lord ate the Paschal lamb at the Last Supper and in which Nicodemus collected the sacred blood that flowed from the Cross.

After Cesarea and up to the end of the first Crusade in Iiio the Genoese continued to fight in Palestine, and although we no longer hei-r of Guglielmo Embriaco leading them they must have obtained substantial successes, judging by the list of acquisitions made by them in the East at the close of the war. These comprise streets in Jerusalem and Jaffa, a third part of Antioch, Tyre, S. Jean d'Acre, Cesarea and other towns, and besides the territory gained there is a special proof of the value of the services rendered by them in the most flattering inscription in honour of Genoa placed prominently in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by King Baldwin of Jerusalem. The King caused to be engraved on the architrave the words « Prepotens Genuensium presidium» and, in spite of the jealousy not unnaturally created by this quite exceptional mark of distinction, the inscription remained till nearly the close of the century. A more enduring honour conferred by the Pope, was the red cross on the white ground which the Genoese were allowed to adopt as their arms and which still so frequently meets our eye in the town.

With the first Crusade the part played by the Genoese as combatants for the Faith may be said to cease. In the second Crusade of 1146 they do not appear at all, and in the third — when the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin had caused some return of the old religious zeal .— it was only individuals who joined the war, and not any organized force. As might have been expected the brilliant successes of the Genoese in the first Crusade were not wholly pleasing to their neighbours the Pisans who had themselves been rather conspicuous by their absence in the great events of the war. In fact the proverbial expression applied to assistance tardily rendered which you often hear in these parts, » To come late like the help of Pisa » « Come 1' ajuto di Pisa », refers back to the Siege of Jerusalem when the Pisan contingent only appeared on the scene after the scaffolding of Embriaco had done its work. The

Pisans had besides an old grudge against Genoa about the preference given to the more northern port by Charlemagne and his successors, whereas in the days oF the Lombard kings Pisa ranked as the principal harbour of north-west Italy; and above all the occupation of Corsica, which as mentioned above had taken place about the year iooo, was a standing thorn in their rivals' side. No wonder then if in the year 1120, shortly after the close of the first Crusade, a war broke out between the two Republics, the first of a long and dreary series only to come to a conclusion with the break up of the Pisans at Meloria nearly two centuries later. I don't propose to say anything about the many Pisan wars that succeeded each other in the period we have now under review. I don't see that any historical lesson can be learnt from this mere scuffling of kites and crows, and it makes such dry reading that one can fully realise the story quoted by Macaulay of the prisoner of war to whom the Pisans gave the alternative of getting through one of their historios or going to the galleys, and who found the book so tough that he finally chose the oar. I prefer to call your attention to a brighter side of the relations of the two states in the twelfth century as recorded in the Loggia Dei Pisani, the mart or exchange where the Pisans used to congregate in Genoa in the brief intervals of peace to do their business and possibly attempt in a quiet way to get their neighbours' money without bloodshed until the next summons to war came. This Loggia, situated between the Piazza S. Giorgio and the Piazza Cattaneo, has had a modern house most ruthlessly built in and over it, but the shape can be still distinctly traced. If the cornice could be relieved of the superincumbent masonry and the arches and pillars cleared of the walls that block them this Loggia would be one of the most striking mediaeval monuments of Genoa. About the time of these early Pisan wars, in 1139, the Genoese coined their first money with the cross on one side and the castle on the other, and it is interesting to remenber this as an explanation of the terms « Croce e Griffo » which you will always hear the boys in Genoa use as the equivalent of our « heads and tails ». The « croce » is the cross of the Crusades and « griffo » is the ancient popular term for the castle, probably because a griphon was the old seal of the Commune which issued all its edicts from the castle. It is really strange how tenacious the lower classes are of old names. No cross and griphon coins have been in circulation for centuries and yet the terms are as much in use, wherever pitch and toss is played, as if all the coppers in the country had the same stamp now as 750 years ago.

We now come to the very important successes achieved in 1147 and 1148 by the Genoese over the Moors in Spain. The Moors in their flourishing kingdom of Granada had made themselves so formidable to the neighbouring Christian rulers of Castile, Navarre and Barcelona, that the latter petitioned the Pope for help. The Pope, Eugene the Third, applied to the Genoese to take up arms against the unbelievers, and the invitation was accepted with the greatest promptitude. The local historians dwell with delight on the enthusiasm shown by their fellow-citizens in responding to the call, of the Church. They describe how all the men in the town crowded into the newly built cathedral to hear the consuls read the Pope's letter, and how with one voice they declared their readiness to exterminate the heathen or die in the attempt. It sounds ungracious to doubt the sincerity of the devotion of the Genoese on this occasion but one must admit that there were other reasons besides religion to induce then to make the war. There was the deep-seated hatred of the Saracens for having sacked their town two centuries before, and there was above all the prospect of bringing home very substantial results in the way of money and valuables from a people whose riches had become proverbial. But however eager, and from whatever motive, the Genoese may have been for the Spanish expedition, the force they collected was astonishingly large and gives a striking proof of the resources of the town in the twelfth century. Thirty thousand men, a number fully equal to the army which Edward the Third landed in France and with which he won Cressy, carried on 60 galleys and 160 transports left this harbour in the summer of 1147 and sailed to Almeria, the chief port of Granada. This place they took after a long siege with great slaughter of the Moors and immense capture of booty. The fleet then sailed north and after wintering in the neighbourhood of Barcelona attacked the town of Tortosa which came next to Almeria in importance as a maritime station of the Moorish kingdom. This was also taken with much loss of Saracen blood and money, and the Genoese returned home in 1148 to their well-deserved rest, overflowing with spoil. Among the many objects of art brought back were some silver lamps of the finest workmanship which were placed in the shrine of S. John the Baptist in the cathedral and hung there until they were carried off" by Napoleon. Napoleon also carried off the famous Catino of Embriaco, but that was returned, possibly because the French discovered it to be green glass and not emerald, whereas the lamps were genuine metal. You will still find a record of Almeria in a fresco which his been recently restored, over the main door of the palace where the Prefecture now is. This palace was built by A. Doria at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the taking of Almeria was painted in a conspicuous position on the walls in honour of one of the early members of the family, Ansaldo Doria, who commanded the Genoese fleet on the occasion.

A few years afor the Spanish Campaign, Genoa acquired the distinction of being the only North Italian State that made a succesful stand against Frederick I, surnamed Barbarossa. In 1155 Frederick had received from the Pope Adrian IV, who was by the way an Englishman, Nicholas Brakespeare, and the only one of his nation who ever wore the tiara, the imperial crown and suzerainty of North Italy as a recompense for the services rendered to the Church in taking prisoner the celebrated heretic Arnold of Brescia and restoring the Papal Government in Rome. In virtue of these privileges Barbarossa demanded complete submission from all the Venetian, Lombard and Piedmontese cities, and on his claims being resisted he let loose upon them a whole flood of fury, wasting, burning and killing year after year till all opposition was crushed. When at length he was master of the plain he sent over the Appennines to Genoa to demand tribute, and on being met — no doubt to his intense astonishment:— with a refusal he marched his forces to Bosco, a place between Alessandria and Novi, within forty or fifty miles of Genoa, preparatory to an assault on the town. In this crisis the Genoese proved themselves fully equal to the occasion. To gain time they sent envoys to Barbarossa to feign compliarice and spin out the discussion as to the amount to be paid, and simultaneously they set to work with the greatest vigour to complete the circuit of the town with a strong line of walls, the old line of the tenth century having been altogether outgrown. Men, women and children all set their hands to the task, and in the wonderfully short space of fifty three days a massive rampart — more than a mils long and studded with numerous towers — was sufficiently completed to set at defiance any means of attack known in those days. These walls starting from the Porta S. Andrea, which, as already mentioned, formed part of the old line, went down to what is now Piazza Carlo Felice and round by the Acquasola to that part .of the town now occupied by Via Nuova which preserves the name of Portello, or Little Gate, from thence up to Castelletto and with a wide curve down through the present Piazza Annunziata by the old church of Santa Sabina to the sea, at the point where the Porta di Vacca still exists although cased on both sides by a comparatively modern building. I commend to your notice as a special feature of this line of walls the Porta S. Andrea which is being admirably restored under the direction of Signor D'Andrade and which will be, when the work is completed, quite an unique specimen of early pointed architecture.

On hearing of the spirit shown by the town the Emperor lowered his tone, and an agreement quite favourable for the Genoese and with no conditions as to tribute was come to without difficulty. This readiness to come to terms, in a character so fierce and determined as that of Barbarossa, needs some further explanation than the mere warlike attitude of his opponents, and the reason would probably be found in his wish to get the help of a fleet in the expedition he was planning against William, the last Norman king of the Two Sicilies. This expedition never came off, but Frederick got his reward for his politic treatment of the Genoese by keeping them out of the Lombard League, the famous Lega Lombarda, which was formed shortly after against the common foe of Italy and which the Republic had been fully expected to join.

We have thus far had only to record prosperity and triumph in this period of Genoese history but in the latter part of the twelfth century the reverse of the medal begins to be seen. For one thing the town appears to have been swarming with robbers and cut-throats, and the chronicler Giustiniani tells us in his old-fashioned style how matters got to such a pass that the consuls had to interfere. We hear that the consuls in order that « the land should stay in peace and comfort « caused to be sunk in the sea with their feet and « their hands, tied and with great weight of stones « round their neck many ruffians who had com« mitted thefts of great importance, and through « this severity of justice all these ribald thieves « and brawlers remained quite quiet. »

Another evil of the times with which the consuls could not deal so summarily was the intestine feud between the chief families based on the great political divisions of Guelphs and Ghibellines which, originating in the triumph in the person of Frederick Barbarossa of the Swabian and Ghibelline house over the rival Bavarian and Guelphic branch, had been imported into Italy to curse the land for hundreds of years. In Genoa the family of Avvocato were the first to take up the Imperial or Ghibelline side, while the Castelli declared themselves Guelphs, by which not only fidelity to the Pope was implied but also the support of national and civic liberty against outside dominion. It is strange that in the present century the adherents of the Pope should have taken a precisely opposite course, the cause of the Vatican having come to mean the negation of freedom and encouragement of foreign bayonets. To return to the Avvocati and Castelli, they and their respective adherents with their constant street- fights soon became a perfect nuisance in the town, and at last it was settled that for the sake of peace they should have a stand up fight of it, six on each side, and decide once for all who were the best men. So the twelve chosen champions met on the appointed day, it was in the year 1169, in the lists that had been prepared in the Piazza before the old palace of the Bishop on the »spot apparently now corresponding with the ground occupied by the disused church of San Silvestro just above Piazza Sarzano. Every inch of available space was packed with an expectant crowd and they were going to begin when the then Archbishop of Genoa, Monsignor Ugo, appeared on the scene with a train of priests who carried the ashes of S. John the Baptist and were followed by a weeping throng of all the female relatives of the intending combatants. The Archbishop's entreaties for peace, the sight of the venerated relics and the women's tears prevailed and there was no fight, indeed the two rival leaders, Orlando Avvocato and Fulco Castello, kissed each other and swore eternal friendship. This episode is interesting as showing the respect felt for the Church in the early days of Genoa.

There is no record of any later intervention on the part of the Church in any of the innumerable fights between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines which continued on from generation to generation until stopped by Andrea Doria, the priests seeing no doubt that it would be of no use. Even in the instance just spoken of, although actual bloodshed ceased for the time, intriguing and hatred went on as before, neither side gaining much advantage until in 1189 the news of the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin turned the scale, as the religious zeal of the leading Guelphs prompted them to volunteer for the third Crusade, and the Ghibellines were thus left masters of the field. They, eager at any cost to spite their rivals and no doubt with the view of gaining the first step to Imperial supremacy, set to work to persuade the people who were sick and tired of these perpetual struggles for power that the only means of living quietly was to get a ruler from outside to control both factions; and thus in 1193 the Consulate, the most successful as well as the only truly national form of Genoese government, under which the Crusades had been fought, the Moors conquered and the powerful B.irbarossa held at bay, was extinguished never to revive.

To conclude this period I will say a few words about the principal buildings that are connected with the Consular age, apart from. the line of walls that I have already spoken of. Foremost among them stands the cathedral which was commenced by order of the consuls in the same year that the Genoese set out cn the first Crusade , on the site of the church dedicated to S. Laurence which, as mentioned before, was supposed to date back to the passage of the Saint through Genoa in 2$o, and to which in the second half of the tenth century the bishops of Genoa had transferred their seat as being safer from an attack by sea than S. Siro. The building of the new San Lorenzo was carried on during most part of the twelfth century, and the side doors and walls belong to this time, while the facade is of the early part ot the fourteenth century, and the tower, the cupola and choir were not added till the sixteenth. The cupola is the work of the Perugine architect, Galeazzo Alessio, to whom Genoa owes so much, but who certainly appears by no means at his best when disfiguring, as in this instance, a fine early Gothic piece of art with commonplace Renaissance. Leaving all details to the guide books I just wish to call your attention, on the front and particularly on the north side, to a number of bas reliefs built into the wall without any attempt at order and cut down to the size of the ordinary slabs with which they are intermingled. These are undoubted portions of ancient sarcophagi, belonging to the Roman period of occupation alluded to in my introductory remarks and of which we have other traces in the architraves of different Genoese churches. We may suppose the sarcophagi to have been lying about uncared for at the time the works of the cathedral were going on, and it was certainly an excellent means of preserving the sculptures to imbed them in a wall well out of reach. Coming to the inside of the church I recommend you to procure the necessary permission to visit the Treasury which contains sjme really remarkable objects. There you will see the furious Catino of Embriaco and another relic scarcely less prized, a reputed portion of the true Cross enshrined in a cruciform case of solid gold, nearly a yard high and thickly studded with large gems, diamonds, pearls, rubies and emeralds. Even if the contents and the materials were less precious the history attached to this cross would make it most interesting. When in the fourth Crusade in 1204 the Venetians under Dandolo took Constantinople and placed Baldwin on the throne of Alexis Commenus the new Emperor sent it as a present to Pope Innocent the Third, but the Venetian galley carrying this and other valuables had to put in by stress of weather to the port of Modone in Greece where there happened to be stationed two Genoese gallies in command of a certain Bo. Bo promptly seized the rival ship and cargo but magnanimously sent the cross to San Lorenzo, for which act he receives high praise from the historian Giustiniani who tells the story. Giustiniani evidently considers that the conduct of Baldwin in taking the cross from the Greeks and that of Bo in taking it from him are two very different matters, and that in fact what was rank robbery in one case was simply righteous recovery on the other. The Treasury possesses besides two massive silver chests, one to contain the ashes of S. John the Baptist and the other the consecrated wafer, when borne in procession. The chest of S. John is of the fifteenth century, wrought by a Milanese artist, and is a beautiful piece of workmanship, while the other which is a century later and by a Genoese, although equally rich, is far inferior art. Still more remarkable than the Treasury, at least from an historical point of view, is the chapel of S. John. As one stands before that chapel, facing the marble urn where the ashes were laid nearly eight centuries ago, it is impossible not to be stirred at the thought of the long line of great names that connect themselves with the spot. First, in 1161, Pope Alexander III who gave the authority of his papal brief to the genuineness of the relics, and twenty years later Barbarossa, weighted with the double humiliation of the defeat of Legnano at the hands of the Lombard League and the public penance performed at Venice when Alexander pressed his foot on the prostrate Emperor; while as if to revenge the insult the middle of the next century saw another Pope, the Genoese Innocent IV, kneeling before the shrine to implore divine protection from Barbarossa's grandson, the Emperor Frederick II, who at that time had the Pope almost at his mercy. In 1311 Henry VII of Germany, who has the ill-omened distinction in Genoese history of being the first foreign monarch to whom the city gave over her liberties, appears as a visitor. At the end of the same century we have that most accomplished and capable of holy women, S. Catherine of Siena, who came through Genoa in 1380 after persuading Gregory XI to leave Avignon and terminate the so-called seventy years captivity of the Church. Just a century later comes an equally well-known saint, S. Francis of Paola, on his way to France where he had been summoned by the dying tyrant Louis XI, and in 1507 another French king, Louis XII, one of the most determined enemies that Genoa ever had to endure, visited the cathedral and was received with the utmost pomp. Don John of Austria, after winning at Lepanto one of the decisive battles of the world, adds his name in 1573 to the illustrious list. In 1700 we have Philip V of Spain, who apparently found time for sight-seeing while the whole of Europe was in a blaze with the war of his succession, and finally in 1805 the roll closes with Napoleon, the destroyer of Genoa's political existence, whom one can imagine to stand sneering at the relics, while ordering the silver Moorish lamps to be taken down and carried away to Paris as a testimony to their superior value.

Besides San Lorenzo there are several fine churches belonging to the period.

The early Genoese certainly gave substantial proof of being religious as well as rich in the money they spent upon their places of worship. All the architectural features that remain to us of the twelfth century are ecclesiastical, while in the later times it is the palaces and public buildings that come to the front, and the churches are comparatively nowhere. These early churches are, S. Maria delle Vigne, S. Luca, S. Giacomo di Carignano; all founded by the Spinola family. S. Giacomo is of course not the big church of Carignano, which we all know so well and which is four centuries more recent, but a small and picturesque building standing over the sea. Then comes S. Stefano, which is principally interesting to visitors from the fine picture of the Martyrdom of S. Stephen by Giulio Romano which was carried off to Paris by Napoleon but restored after his downfall; San Donato, one of the churches which I have mentioned as possessing a Roman architrave; S. Agostino with its memories of the passage of the remains of the saint; S. Maria di Castello situated quite close to the Embriaco tower; S. Maria della Maddalena below where the Via Nuova now is; finally San Matteo, the church of the famous Doria house, founded in 1125 by Martino Doria who is reported to have afterwards turned monk and ended his days in the monastery of San Fruttuoso at Portofino, that equally picturesque and secluded spot where for three centuries the Dorias laid their dead. You will notice in some of these churches as well as in the cathedral the black and white stripes which became the prerogative for building purposes of the Dorias, Spinolas, Fieschis and Grimaldis, probably because this order of architecture, as being connected with an edifice so highly prized as San Lorenzo, was considered a privilege only to be conferred on the very noblest in the state. This pre-eminence the four families undoubtedly deserved, each one being a power in itself, but they unfortunately took opposite sides in the great political parties of Italy, the Dorias and Spinolas being Ghibelline or Imperialists, and the Fieschis and Grimaldis Guelphs or with the Pope, and the foundation was thus laid of centuries of civil wars as bloody and as monotonous as those between Genoa and Pisa. Of the four families the two Guelphic ones, Fieschi and Grimaldi, are the least ancient as their names do not appear till the middle of the twelfth century, while the Dorias take their rise about the year 11oo from the marriage of a knight of Narbonne, who on his way to the Crusades stopped in Genoa, with the daughter, called Oria, of the Genoese house of Della Volta. The name, Portoria, of the part of the town near the hospital comes from the Della Volta heiress who had large property there. As for the Spinolas they are still older than the Dorias, Guido Visconti the founder of the line being reported to date back to the tenth century, when he exercised hospitality on such a bountiful scale in his country house in the Polcevera that the friendly nickname of Spinola or broach-cask was applied to him and remained in the family for ever. To complete the title the Spinolas adopted as their crest a spigot, as you can see in their arms. There is a good clear specimen of the spigot in the coat of arms above the door of the Palace of Prefecture which, although built by a Doria, passed in the seventeenth century into the hands of the Spinolas.