Luigi Speranza
The majority of Italian cities trace back their origin to some conveniently remote period of which there is no certain record, and Genoa is no exception to the rule.
Nothing short of a tradition which included Abraham and Noah would satisfy the Genoese of old time; and, as the legend has been carved over the nave arches of San Lorenzo ever since 1307, and this has become, so to speak, the official version, it may be conveniently quoted here before engaging in affairs deserving of better credence.
"Janus, the first King of Italy, and descended from the Giants, founded Genoa on this spot in the time of Abraham; and Janus, Prince of Troy, skilled in astronomy, while sailing in search of a place wherein to dwell in healthfulness and security, came to the same Genoa founded by Janus, King of Italy and great-grandson (pronepos) of Noah; and seeing that the sea and the encompassing hills seemed in all things convenient, he increased it in fame and greatness."
It is a little curious that with this for their creed the Genoese were agreeably surprised when, during some excavations commenced in 1898 near the Via Giulia, a quantity of vases and sepulchral ornaments, dating back to the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., were unearthed; for although Genoa had always strenuously maintained the story of her vast antiquity, it must be confessed that the material evidences were tenuous in the extreme. The successive descents of barbarian invaders had robbed her of all monuments previous to the year 900, with the single exception of a bronze tablet dating back to Roman days, which was dug up near the city in 1507, and is now preserved in the Palazzo Comunale.
Livy tells us that, in B.C. 206, Mago sacked the town; and three years afterwards it was rebuilt by decree of the Roman consuls. In the reign of Hadrian a species of autonomous government was granted to all the cities of Italy, and it is to be supposed that Genoa profited by this concession. But when Rome's grasp slackened, and the barbarians were at the throat of Rome herself, Genoa felt the loss of her once powerful ally. Theodoric and the Goths sacked the town in 538, Alberic and his Lombards took possession of it in 588, and in 670 it was again sacked, by Rotharis, who, by destroying the walls and forbidding the Genoese to rebuild them, left the city an easy prey to the Saracens.1
The Lombards do not seem to have stayed in Genoa, and long after the conquest the city remained under such control as Byzantium could exert, and began to develop its independence. The advent of Charlemagne in 800 had its due effect on Genoa, which became a contado; and the first Count, Ademarus, was instructed to protect the coast against the Saracens. According to Foglietta 2 he armed a fleet in Genoa, and
1 Lumbroso, Sulla Storia dei Gcnevesi avanti il AfC.
2 Foglietta, Historic Genuensium.
driving the infidels from Corsica, was subsequently confirmed in the possession of the island by the Pope.1
When the Carlovingian dynasty fell Genoa was strong enough to "reconstitute herself in liberty"; and it is in the year 888 that the first consuls are supposed to have been elected "from the remains of the old aristocracy arising out of the feudal system which, during the Frankish dominion, had been established in the neighbouring territories; and whose representatives had been induced by personal motives to become Genoese citizens, forming at a later date the military and commercial nobilta of the Republic.2
Little attempt seems to have been made to cope with the Saracens after the departure of the Franks; and in 936 the city was sacked and burnt, while the terrified inhabitants fled to the hills for safety. But in the same year ships were built to protect the coast, while a citadel and protective walls were hastily constructed. In 958 Berengarius III. and Adalbert confirmed the privileges of the Commune of Genoa, officially recognising the regime which had begun in 888; and the Republic of Genoa may be said to date its existence from this all important diploma.
The regular chronicles do not commence for another century, when the city had already begun to make those strides along the path of progress which in course of time rendered it one of Italy's most prosperous states. Already San Remo and Ceriana
1 Canale, Nuova Istoria della Repitbblica di Geneva, vol. i. p. 73, endeavours to prove that Ademarus was Count of Geneva, basing his argument on the confusion caused by the term Civitas Gemunsis, which meant equally Genoa or Geneva. It is scarcely likely, however, that Geneva would be called upon to supply a fleet for service in the Mediterranean.
8 Laazani, Sloria dti Comuni Italiani, p. 130.
had become feuds of the church, the first step in the subjection of the Riviera; the struggle with Pisa had begun in 1070, and formed a prelude to unceasing maritime wars; the galleys supplied to Godfrey de Bouillon for the Crusade of 1097 brought about the commencement of commercial activity; and in 1099 Genoa obtained her first colonies in Palestine as a reward for services rendered at the siege of Jerusalem, a city that had defied the efforts of the Crusaders until the arrival of Guglielmo Embriaco with certain high and portable towers, by means of which the attackers were enabled to command the battlements of the walls. These towers were dragged to the edge of the fosse, and a shower of projectiles and " Greek fire" poured through the loopholes at the defenders. A light breeze blew in the faces of the Saracens, and taking advantage of it, the Christians set light to the upper portion of the defences, and blinded the enemy with the smoke. There remained no other course for them but to desert the walls, and the Genoese were enabled to fill up the ditch unmolested. The towers were brought up to the face of the wall, but when the landing bridges were run out the Saracens opposed them with a hastily contrived battering ram, which successfully kept the attack at bay. Each time the great beam swung out the tower shuddered under the stroke, and the attempt was in danger of failing. At length the Genoese tied a bill-hook on a long pole, caught the swaying ropes of the ram, and, severing them, sent it crashing into the fosse below. The bridges were run out once more, and de Bouillon, followed by his brother and a handful of men, leapt down on to the walls, opened the city gates, and admitted the Christian army.
From 1099 onwards the history of Genoa is clear and authentic. Caffaro has left us an inestimably valuable record of the events of his own days, and his annals were continued by public decree until 1293. He tells us that " Caffarus, when he was twenty years of age, began to write down and note the names of the Consuls of Genoa, and all the things which they had caused to be done."1 He records the changes made in the consular government as well as the growth and development of the colonies which formed so important a factor in the subsequent wealth of the city.
There was, of course, an excellent reason why the energy of the Genoese developed thus early its tendency towards expansion into foreign lands. The whole of Italy was divided into small parcels, each of which was under the sway of a city whose population and spirit of enterprise was greatly disproportionate to the extent of her territories. With the land powers this inevitable desire for expansion led to the invasion of neighbouring rights, and drew each town into a duel to the death with its nearest neighbour. The maritime powers, Genoa, Pisa and Venice, were differently situated. Genoa at least had nothing much to boast of beyond her harbour and her mountainous possessions. Inland it was practically impossible for her to expand . . but all that might be reduced to her control she grasped in no uncertain manner, and the whole Mediterranean coast from Monaco to Spezia was quickly brought to submission. Beyond this narrow strip of land, however, she was hemmed in by the Alps and Apennines, which rendered further advance impossible. True, she had 1 Caffarus, Annales, in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriplores, vol. vi.
more or less of a high road into Lombardy by the valleys of the Polcevera and Bisagno, but beyond them lay the greater power of Milan, which effectually excluded ambitious hopes in this direction. As a consequence the only hope of expansion lay in the development of her sea power and the accretion of foreign possessions. Pisa, with Florence and Lucca at hand to limit her territories, and the Arno for a harbour, was somewhat similarly situated, and both republics turned their attention first to Sardinia and Corsica, and later to the Crimea and the coasts of Syria. It was inevitable that both should covet the same lands. . and a condition of desperate rivalry arose in which neither could hope for peace until the other were crushed. Each strove restlessly for the favour of greater powers, and when Pisa contrived to enlist the help of the Emperors, Genoa replied by becoming fervently Guelf. It is impossible to follow all the details of the struggle, but it may be of interest to mention the pretexts on which the rivals let loose the dogs of war.
It has already been recorded that the Genoese had driven the Saracens from Corsica and occupied the island; and in 1050 the Pisans, exhorted thereto by the Pope, endeavoured to do the same in Sardinia ;1 but, finding themselves weatherbound, had taken possession of Corsica instead. These quarrels led to active warfare in 1119, peace being made in 1133 through the good offices of the Pope, who, in order to remove at least one of Genoa's grievances, made the see of San Lorenzo an archbishopric in the same year.
1 It was eventually taken in 1115 by the Genoese and Pisans. Pisa . claimed that the Genoese had agreed to accept all the booty taken as her share of the spoils, leaving the possession of the land to Pisa.
The Genoese next turned their attention to the Saracens in Spain, taking the Balearic Islands with but little trouble, and sending a fleet, numbering in all 223 sail, under Ansaldo D' Oria, to the mainland in 1146. Almeria was taken in the ensuing year, and in 1148 a fresh armada, under Oberto della Torre, reduced Tortosa. The spoils gathered by the Genoese were enormous. . 60,000 marabottini were sent home from Almeria, and the government received half the revenue of the city for fifteen years; while at Tortosa a third of the booty and a similar proportion of the revenues fell to the conquerors.
Profitable as these foreign campaigns were, in 1154 the Genoese were obliged to attend to events nearer home. Barbarossa came into Italy with the intention of uniting the whole peninsula under his own sway, and of depriving the several cities of their cherished independence. At his first coming he contented himself with taking Tortona, and commanding the Genoese to send ambassadors to his camp, where they were received in a friendly manner, and told that "the Emperor neither sought submission nor tribute" (Foglietta, Historic). But the Genoese deemed it advisable to protect themselves against a possible change of attitude, and in 1155 a new circuit of walls was commenced, the part near to, and including, the Porta degli Archi being completed in that year. Another portion was begun in 1157, and continued in the following year, when Frederic Barbarossa made his second descent into Italy. "Men and women worked at them night and day for eight days, and so much was built that one might have supposed it to have been the labour of a year"1 The next year a 1 Giustiniani, Annalidi Genova, vol. i. p. 199.
fresh tract of wall was built in only fifty-three days, the whole population assisting and working in shifts.
It is not to be supposed, as Foglietta and other writers would have us believe, that the pacific policy of Barbarossa was dictated by fear of the valiant Genoese,1 but by the requirements of his projected campaign in Sicily. The Pope had rendered the Island independent of the Empire by renewing the investiture in the name of the Holy See; and henceforth the one dream of Barbarossa's life was to wrest the kingdom from its possessors. For this purpose he required a fleet, and no city in Italy was better able to supply his wants than Genoa. For this reason alone did he receive her ambassadors in friendly guise.
It was in pursuance of this policy that in 1162 the Emperor granted to Genoa the whole littoral from Monaco to Spezia, where the smaller towns, having already placed themselves under the protection of Genoa as a consequence of the Saracen raids, found a benevolent neighbour transformed into an exacting mistress. Each Riviera town endeavoured to the best of its small ability to resist the change, and whenever Genoa was in difficulties with an external foe, some town or other would seize the opportunity presented for revolt. On most occasions the whole coast was in red rebellion; sometimes it was Albenga or Finale that broke lose; but Ventimiglia in especial never once let slip a chance of raising the flag of independence. On these occasions orders would be issued from Genoa that each of the other towns was to assist in quelling
1 "But Frederic, considering within himself what a great undertaking an attack on Genoa would be—quanta moles esset urbs Genue—and seeing that it was better to give up freely what could not be obtained by force," etc. (Foglietta).
the outbreak; and when in 1199 Ventimiglia threw off the yoke, Albenga, Lingueglia, Diano, Oneglia and San Remo were obliged to swear that "we will wage bloody warfare (guerram vivarn) against the Ventimigliesi, and we will not hold any intercourse with them either for buying or selling."1 Finale had to be taken and retaken at least six times; Lingueglia fell before Genoese troops seven times; and Savona, after its first subjugation in 1131, was again reduced in 11 S3, 1170, 1202, 1227, 1251, 1253, 1317, 1332, !397, I440, and lastly in 1528, when it seems to have settled down more or less quietly.
The war with Pisa continued throughout the twelfth century, or would have done so, had not Barbarossa, who required the fleets of both rivals for his Sicilian campaign, obliged the belligerents to be content with taunts and threats which were to be fulfilled at a more convenient moment. It is recorded that the Genoese announced their intention of cutting off the noses and gauging out the eyes of all the Pisans they found in Sardinia,2 and the latter replied by promising to sail into the harbour of Genoa, and shoot silver arrows and ballister shots swathed in scarlet into the city8 as a mark of contempt. There was a little fighting of a desultory kind, and peace was only made in 1175, when the Emperor again marched into Italy, and, summoning the ambassadors of both towns as well as those of Florence and Lucca to Pavia, forced upon them an unwilling peace, and divided the Island of Sardinia between the rival maritime states.
1 G. Rossi, Storiadi Ventimiglia.
2 "Nos illorum nasos et occulos de capitibus eiciemus " (Caffaro).
* "Magna vi argentearum sagittarum ac globorum purpurea fascia velatorum" (Foglietta, Historic).
During the progress of these events the government had been disturbed by the outbreak of internal dissensions, which more than once threatened the ruin of the Republic. The first act of the consuls in 1147 was to bring "the discordant spirits that were in the city to agreement"; and seven years later the consuls elect refused to be sworn, only accepting office when the archbishop offered them remission of all their sins by way of inducement. Mercenaries had frequently to be employed to quell the disturbances, and of the ringleaders, if caught, some were hanged or mutilated, while others had their houses destroyed or were let off with fines.
The outcome of these riots was a change in the form of government, and in 1190 a Podesta was appointed in the person of Tetocio il Manigoldo, a Brescian. . but he, too, proved powerless to maintain peace, and his actions were from the first steadily opposed by the Castelli, one of the factious families. It would be vain to follow the history of these discords, and the alternating rule of Podesta and consuls . . "the strife increased, and ever the della Volta fought with the della Corte, assailing their houses and towers with great stones which were cast from wooden engines, on such wise that no man may describe the same." 1 The authority of both Podesta and consuls was set at naught, and, though the towers were reduced to the lawful height of eighty feet in II97,2 the discords continued unabated.
Though these disturbances seem to have come to
1 Giustiniani, Annali, vol. i. p. 272.
2 A singular exception was made in favour of the Embriaco family, in recognition of the services of Guglielmo at the siege of Jerusalem. Their tower still rears its head above the buildings in the neighbourhood of Sta. Maria del Castello.
an end in 1201, when consuls were appointed whose sole duty it was to see that the peace was not broken, the ensuing thirty or forty years were filled with a considerable number of wars. It is to be observed, however, that throughout the whole of Genoese history there were rarerly more campaigns than one in progress at the time. If there were war with Venice a truce was made with Pisa; and whenever there was war with either there was usually peace at home, so that the frequent outbreaks of civil war coincided with periods of external inactivity, and perhaps served to keep the Genoese exercised in the military arts.
In 1190 Barbarossa was succeeded by his son Henry VI., who demanded assistance from Genoa to enable him to enforce the old claim to the kingdom of Sicily. He received a fleet of thirty galleys, and these, with the addition of a squadron from Pisa, set sail for Gaeta in 1194. The opportunity was one not to be lost, and when the " allies" reached Sicilian waters a pitched battle was fought—not with the Sicilians, but between the Genoese and Pisans. Thirteen Pisan galleys fell into the hands of their rivals, and all the Genoese warehouses in Messina were burnt in retaliation. Once more further reprisals were prevented by imperial decree, and the war dwindled down to privateering exploits, until a truce was patched up in 1208.
Immediately afterwards the first war with Venice broke out. The Venetians, too, were pursuing a policy of expansion into lands not their own, and had taken possession of the Island of Candia. With Genoese help they were driven out, and their Admiral, Rainero Dandolo, captured. This high-handed action initiated another long series of the maritime wars with which the annals of Genoa are so full. At this period the Republic was in a state of warfare with no less than six considerable powers, Venice, Pisa, Provence, Marseilles, the Saracens of the African coast, and the Sultan of Egypt. Whenever a fresh Crusade was preached truces would ensue on all sides, generally sworn to by large numbers of prominent men from the cities concerned; and on one occasion as many as five hundred Genoese and a similar number of Pisans met to ratify a truce made for five years, though before half the term had expired each city was raiding the marine of the other on various pretexts. The war with Venice, however, did not develop a serious aspect for another fifty years, and in 1218 there occurred a breathing space which was only disturbed by a punitive expedition against Ventimiglia.
Meanwhile the state of affairs in Genoa itself was far from satisfactory. When there was no Podesta the government had been in the hands of consuls, but the latter office was finally abolished about 1216 and replaced by " Doctors of Law" Whether there was a Podesta or not1 is uncertain, but in 1218 the Podesta was Rambertino di Guidone di Bovarello, and he was assisted by eight rettori. These rettori were called "Nobili."
Probably since the day when Ephraimite lips refused to pronounce the Shibboleth of Gilead no single word in any language has brought so much shame, bloodshed and disaster to a nation as the word " Noble " brought to the Genoese. It is a title which does not seem to have existed previous to the year 1190 . . and though Accinelli
1 Accinelli, Compendia della Storia di Genova, says a Podesta was appointed in 1216 with five "doctors" to assist as judges. Giustiniani says there was no Podesta in this year, and that the "doctors" were "foreigners," i.e. they were not Genoese.
says it was first applied to the rettori mentioned above, there is reason to believe that it arose when thirty cittadini nobili were chosen to elect the Podesta.1 These nobili, or notabili would naturally be drawn from the old feudal families which we have already seen supplying the earliest consuls. With the growth of the Republic the feudal aristocracy which had been destroyed by the barbarian invasions gradually came anew into being in the descendants of the former lords of the soil. It was an aristocracy to which any citizen of ability might rise by his own efforts. "In the period during which the liberty of the popolo and the power of individual cities had its greatest development, we shall find that out of the industrial and commercial class there arose in the commune a merchant nobility which was in no way inferior to the old feudal nobility, and which successive changes had once more introduced within the walls." 2 It was the quarrels of these nobles which in later years distracted Genoa, and rendered her powerless against the machinations of Milan and France.
It has been said that in 1218 the Republic was enjoying a truce from all her enemies; but it was only the prelude to greater operations. It seemed, indeed, as if the Genoese, Pisans and Venetians felt instinctively that they must come to blows whenever they met, and in more sober moments strove to avoid the possibility of war. In 1222 an agreement was drawn up by which the three Republics bound themselves to submit all quarrels or disputes which might arise between any two to the arbitration of the third, and in 1238 the Venetians and Genoese agreed that the ships of
1 Boscassi. . Illustrations Storica dtllo Stemma di Genova. - Lanzani, op. cit. p. 106. either fleet should carry the ensigns of both states, their own on the right side, and that of the other power on the left. But parchments and seals are of little avail in curbing the tempers of men, and serious wars followed these peaceful undertakings.
At this period Frederic II. was emperor, and being in open rupture with the pope, Gregory IX., who had already launched more than one bull of excommunication against him, replied by ill-treating such of the pope's allies as he could reach. He failed in an endeavour to draw the Genoese from their allegiance; and when the pope asked for a fleet which should carry the chief prelates of Europe to Rome, where a comprehensive edict was to be hurled at his imperial antagonist, Frederic commanded Pisa to equip a larger fleet with which he hoped to capture the Genoese galleys, and so prevent the consistory he so much feared. The ecclesiastics of Western Europe assembled at Nice, and in 1341 sixty ships arrived to carry them to Rome. Frederic was ready with a hundred vessels to bar the way, and, coming up with the enemy near the Island of Meloria, captured fiftyfive of their galleys with all the prelates on board.
It was a terrible blow to Genoa, and Frederic followed up his success by inciting the Riviera to revolt. Savona, Albenga and Ventimiglia joyfully responded, while the Republic hastily prepared a new fleet to counteract the next move of the enemy. By day the dockyards rang with the clangour of work, and at night the task was continued by the light of torches. In this way fifty-two galleys were speedily furnished, the very merchants themselves being enrolled among the crews. When Frederic approached the harbour it was to find a fleet in readiness, and the walls fully manned . . and he was obliged to content himself with harassing the Riviera.
With the death of Frederic in 1250 the revolted towns along the coast returned to their obedience, the Pisan fleet sailed back to the Arno, and Genoa again breathed freely
Once more the condition of affairs in the city itself called for reorganisation. The conduct of Filippo della Torre, Podesta in 1257 and a Genoese, had caused the pope to publish a bull of excommunication against the Republic, and it was resolved that the office which had plunged the town in shame should be practically abolished. To this end Guglielmo Boccanegra was elected Rettore or Capitano with thirtytwo Anziani, and, in addition, a Podesta, who, shorn of all his former glory, was made to swear obedience to the Capitano. The off1ce of Capitano was to be held for ten years, and though Boccanegra was deposed long before that period had expired, the few years that he remained at the head of affairs were crowded with events of importance.
Jerusalem had been taken by the Saracens in 1244, and while the Genoese, Pisans and Venetians were being gradually ousted from the ports of Palestine, instead of combining they fought among themselves with the most exemplary ferocity. With the peace manipulated by Gregory IX. still in force a brawl occurred at Tyre in 1251; and this, in conjunction with the arrival of a Genoese captain in command of a Venetian ship to which his claim was doubtful,1 led to a serious outbreak. The Genoese quarter in Acre
1 Sauli, La Colonia de' Genovesi in Galata, vol. i. p. 53, says that the captain, Bessoccio Mallone, had actually purchased it from a pirate, but that the Venetians refused to credit the story.
was laid waste by the Venetians, and when a fleet of thirty-seven sail was hurriedly despatched to effect reprisals the Venetians captured twenty-five of them. Tyre lay at their mercy, and the public and private edifices were levelled with the ground. The proud tower of the Genoese was destroyed to its very foundations, and the gates and corner stones found their way to Venice as trophies.
In spite of these reverses Genoa was steadily building up a colonial trade in another direction. After the fourth Crusade the Empire of the East had been divided up into smaller states. The Latin dynasty, commencing with Baldwin, Count of Flanders, had been placed on the throne of Constantinople, largely by the efforts of Venice, and that city had received due acknowledgment of her services in the form of trading concessions. The deposed Greek imperial family removed to Nicea, and set up a new empire. Michael Palaeologos, tutor and guardian to the Emperor, seized his ward, put out his eyes, and usurped the crown . . then, knowing the insecure position of Baldwin II., Emperor of Constantinople, and in concert with the Genoese, he brought about a revolution, and had little difficulty in taking possession of that throne as well. The Genoese were given the concessions which had formerly belonged to Venice, in return for a promise to support the new Emperor at need; and it was at this period that the Republic came into the possession of Smyrna, Tenedos, Pera (1262), and the valuable trading centre of Caffa (1266) in the Black sea. Among these gifts was the Venetian fortress of Pantocratore. . and the Genoese, burning to avenge the fate of their tower at Tyre, tore the building to pieces amid the sound of trumpets, and in their turn sent Venetian stones in triumph to Genoa, where they were built into the Palazzo del Capitano.1
None the less, with but one exception, the fortunes of war went entirely in favour of Venice. Only once did victory smile on the Genoese; when, in 1262, Simone Grillo with sixteen ships entered the Adriatic, and came up with a rich convoy. In reply to his challenge the Venetians "elated with their former successes, cast chickens into the sea and bade the Genoese fight with them, as though upbraiding them for cowardice and an unwarlike disposition." 2 Stung to the quick by the implied taunt the Genoese attacked vigorously, and captured the whole convoy, not a single ship contriving to escape. Otherwise Venice continued triumphant until peace was made in 1269.
Meanwhile, the Capitano as head of the Republic proved unsatisfactory. Guglielmo Boccanegra abused his office by taking forcible possession of the house of Obbietto Fieschi, and converting it to his own uses with money from the public funds. By such acts as adding to the number of his personal bodyguard and increasing his own salary he gave offence to all classes, and was deposed by a popular revolution in 1262. The power was again centred in a Podesta, but though the popolo was contented enough with the change, the nobles continued to prove refractory.
It would be a difficult task to say what was the exact attitude of the popolo towards the endless revolutions which followed each other so rapidly in Genoa.
1 Now the Palazzo San Giorgio.
a "Veniti superioribus successibus elati, gallinis in mare proiectis velut ingnaviam et imbelle exprobrantes, cum illis pugnere Genuenses iubent" (Foglietta, Historia).
Never pausing to think whether it would be for the better, they appear to have welcomed every change simply because it was a change, and even in the Revolution of 1797 they desired nothing better than that the existing order should be superseded by another. Were a Podesta in office and some bold spirit suggested that a Capitano would be better, they greeted the idea with applause . . if a Doge were to succeed a Capitano their enthusiasm knew no bounds . . and if it were decided to throw away the public freedom, and call in a French or Milanese master, the Great Bell was set rapturously ringing " a gloria."1
Well knowing the mutable temperament of the people, two of the nobles, Oberto Spinola and Oberto D' Oria, came forward in 1270, and upon their own suggestion were appointed "Capitani della Liberta Genovese." From the first they were opposed by the rival families of the Fieschi and Grimaldi, and thus arose fresh feuds which occupied Genoa for nearly a century. The Capitani, however, supplied by the Spinola and D' Oria families, continued to rule until 1291.
Whatever warfare had been in progress with Pisa had hitherto been on a small scale, but in 1282 a new cause of dispute arose, when the judge of Ginerca in Corsica, previously under the aegis of Genoa, transferred his allegiance to Pisa. Genoa threatened reprisals, and both states began to prepare huge armaments. Early in 1284 the Genoese fleet sailed away
1 The advent of a foreign master was not, as it is usually considered, an unwise step on the part of the Genoese. It prevented any one party from rising to too great power, and dominating the Republic, as had occurred in so many other Italian states. The foreigner was always expelled whenever it was convenient, and he could not levy taxes nor appoint new magistracies. It was a sure preventative against the rise of a tyrant in Genoa.
to Corsica, and in their absence a Pisan fleet of seventy-two galleys entered the harbour of Genoa, carried out the old threat of shooting her silver arrows into the town, and then sailed back to the Arno to await the result. The story of the battle of Meloria, which followed immediately upon this challenge, is told in brief upon the marble facade of the little church of San Matteo, and all description of the defeat inflicted on the Pisans must be deferred until a later chapter. Suffice it to say that Pisa was finally crushed as a sea power. The return of Oberto D' Oria with his victorious fleet to Genoa was made the occasion of a public thanksgiving, and in commemoration of the battle a palio of gold brocade was presented annually to the church of San Sisto, on whose festival it had been fought.
The rest of the history of Pisa, so far as it concerns Genoa at this period, is briefly told. Peace was signed in 1288, by which Pisa agreed not to assist the Corsican rebels, to hand over the capital of the island, and to pay the costs of the war. Genoa used her fallen foe hardly; for when Pisa, having promised to hand over Cagliari within twelve months, asked for another year's extension, offering as payment for the delay several "castelli," the fortress of Portovenere, the 25,000 lire still owing and fifty hostages, Genoa refused to listen; and in 1290, aided by Lucca, Leghorn was taken, and the iron chain from the harbour of Porto Pisano cut away and carried to Genoa, where it was broken into several pieces and hung for a perpetual memorial in the chief places of the city. Pisa as a maritime power had ceased to exist, and Genoa was free to turn her attention to the rivalry of Venice.
The regulation of internal affairs under the Capitani had gone on unusually smoothly; and when in 1291 the city waxed weary of that form of government, they quietly resigned and gave place to a new Capitano, introduced by common consent from Asti, who proved less able to restrain the nobles. A revolt by the Fieschi and Grimaldi in 1296 produced a civil war between themselves and the Spinola and D' Oria; and when, after a forty days' battle in the streets, the rebels were expelled, Corrado D' Oria and Corrado Spinola were appointed Capitani for three years, at the end of which a Podesta was again elected.
Venice, meanwhile, had never forgiven Genoa for gaining the concession of Pera, and naturally regarded the colony with jealous eyes. In 1293 tne colony was sacked, and Genoa in reply sent a fleet of twenty sail to the East, where, falling in with a Venetian squadron of thirty-two vessels, the Genoese admiral captured twenty-five. The effect of this news on the Venetians may be imagined . . a fleet was prepared which was to sweep the Genoese from the seas for ever, while the Genoese took every precaution to ensure victory in the impending trial of strength. The two fleets met off Curzola in the Gulf of Venice in 1298, and the Venetians suffered such a defeat as brought about a truce which lasted for many years. As with Meloria, this battle is recorded on San Matteo, and will receive fuller consideration at a more convenient time.
Genoa's prisons were filled to overflowing with the sixteen thousand captives taken in the two great battles; but when peace was made with both Pisa and Venice in 1299, they were allowed to return
home. Pisa was to surrender Sassari in Sardinia, evacuate the whole of Corsica, and to pay the costs of the war.
Thus at the end of the century Pisa had been crushed, and a heavy blow struck at Venice. The fourteenth century opened with Genoa mistress of the seas, a position which she maintained for the next thirty years without a struggle.
These thirty years were not, however, years of peace. A split occurred between the Spinola and D' Oria, which left the former family supreme in 1306, and there ensued much fighting and destruction of property before the Grimaldi, Fieschi and D' Oria were once more admitted to the city in 131 o.1
In the following year Henry VII., the Emperor, visited Genoa on his way to receive the crown in Rome, and the Genoese hailed his coming as a possible means of terminating the endless feuds by which the city was torn. Consuls and Podesta had failed; Captains of the People or of Liberty had been no more successful; might not the monarch of a distant land with almost unlimited forces at his back bring the relief they sought? He was welcomed as a deliverer, and for the first of many times the Republic surrendered its liberty to a foreign lord. Henry was to be Signore for his life-time or for twenty years; to send an imperial vicar to regulate the state, and to receive 60,000 florins for himself and 20,000 for the Empress. But he died too soon for his rule to be of benefit, and the old quarrels once again divided the city into hostile camps. The Guelfs, represented by
1 It is to be noticed that the nobles who were not in power were invariably driven into exile, and generally went off to sulk in Monaco, Taggia or Oneglia.
the Fieschi and Grimaldi, steadily absorbed the power; while the Ghibelline Spinola and D' Oria, driven into renewed exile, seized the Riviera, and, assisted by Milan, laid siege to Genoa. A disastrous civil war thus broke out in 1317, and, while the Ghibellines kept up a vigorous attack, the Guelfs within the walls invoked the aid of Robert of Sicily. On the arrival of the king with a fleet of twenty-five galleys, the Ghibellines retired, and Robert was made lord of Genoa for ten years. He immediately afterwards took his departure, leaving Riccardo Gambacessa as his vicar; but no sooner had he sailed than hostilities were renewed by the Ghibellines. The populace, infuriated by the continued unrest, pillaged and destroyed the Spinola and D' Oria palaces; while the Guelfs, who had hitherto stood on the defensive, armed a fleet which sacked Albenga and left it in ruins. Roused to fresh exertions, the Ghibellines, unmindful of the ties which should have bound them to their native city, allied themselves with their own old enemy Pisa, and a formidable attack was only frustrated by the prompt action of the Florentines, who defeated the Pisans before they could effect a junction with the Ghibellines.
For thirteen years the unnatural strife continued, though with ever abating vigour, and Giustiniani says that in 1323 "the rapine in some measure decreased, for when it happened that a ship was taken, the victors were content to keep the booty and let the crews go free." It is not improbable that all the crops and supplies in the neighbourhood had already been consumed, and that neither side was anxious to take up the burden of providing for prisoners.
It is a remarkable picture which this civil war presents. No hatred could be stronger than that which the factions nursed in themselves and fostered in others. . the leaders, brave and skilful as they undoubtedly were, seemed resolved that if their own side could not win, the enemy should reap as little satisfaction as possible from the results of the war. Dysentery broke out in the garrison; famine and pestilence were almost welcomed, so long as the enemy suffered as well; and though the Catalonians attacked the ships and ravaged the possessions of both Guelfs and Ghibellines, neither side cared to relinquish the suicidal warfare and make common cause against a common foe.
At length the depradations of the Catalonians increased to such magnitude and daring that the Genoese within the walls and without suddenly awoke to the fact that to continue the internecine strife would mean irretrievable ruin. It was agreed, therefore, in 1330, that Robert of Sicily should be asked to arbitrate. Peace was made in the same year, and two years later Guelfs and Ghibellines were once more all reinstated in Genoa, where under the Sicilian vicar, the minor offices were equally divided between them, and the rights of the popolo placed under the surveillance of an Abbate del Popolo.
For three years there was peace; and then the old discords once more broke out, because the Ghibellines suspected the new vicar, Bolgaro di Tolentino, of favouring the Guelfs. As the result of a sudden rising the vicar and the Guelfs were expelled from the city, and Raffaelle D' Oria and Galeotto Spinola became Capitani e Presidenti of Genoa.
With perpetual mutations of this nature in the government it is scarcely to be wondered at that unrest prevailed in all classes. The nobles were cordially hated by the popolo, and it required little to bring the dissatisfaction to a head. For twenty years they had been obliged to fight for Guelf or Ghibelline; for twenty years they had been starved, robbed and ill-treated by the nobles and their minions; and when at last the crews of the galleys revolted because their pay was in arrears, and the ringleader, Francesco Capurro, who had appealed to the French king for redress, was thrown into prison by that monarch, the merchant classes resolved to win back for themselves that liberty which was being gradually crushed out. In 1337 the right to appoint their own Abbate had been taken away; but two years later the nobles, intimidated by the resolute attitude of the popolo, were reluctantly obliged to restore the privilege.
Then came a change which, even for the Genoese, was as remarkable as it was sudden and unpremeditated.
The electors gathered in the Palazzo del Capitano to choose the new Abbate, while a great crowd with the Capitani collected outside to hear the result. The election occupied a considerable time, and the crowd was growing impatient . Just then "a mechanic, of so low an estate that his name has not been recorded," 1 stood up, asking permission to speak . . and, scarcely waiting for a reply, pointed to "one, Simone di Boccanegra by name, a man of great worth, a chief citizen and withal expert in affairs, of good courage and wise counsels," and said that it would be better to leave their bickerings and make Simone Boccanegra their Abbate. The suggestion was received with enthusiasm. . "Yes, let him be our Abbate" cried the onlookers. Boccanegra, however, drew back, but
1 Foglietta, Historic, from which this account is chiefly drawn.
where, finding that the hostile fleet was absent, D' Oria took and burnt Parenzo, menacing Venice herself. The entrances to the lagoon were hastily closed by a line of ships chained together, and Niccolo Pisano was ordered to return. As the inscription on San Matteo tells us, he was caught at Sapienza by the Genoese, and was taken prisoner with his whole fleet.
Once more Genoa had triumphed; and it is passing strange that Pagano did not follow up his advantage and attack Venice at home. Among Foscarini's notes there is one which says that before the battle of Sapienza the Genoese offered to make peace, but that the Venetians contented themselves with ordering Pisano to avoid an engagement. He adds, quoting from a manuscript chronicle which he does not name. . "Now this was permitted by Messer Jesus Christ for our sins, and because the Venetians would not make peace with the Genoese when entreated so to do by the Pope. And Christ took away their might and their valour, so that they should be brought low, and haply, be less obstinate in future."
When peace was made in 1355 the Milanese, presuming upon the part they had played during the preliminary negotiations, seized the opportunity to make demands to which the Genoese were in no degree inclined to accede. At the same time the discords within the city broke out afresh; and when Simone Boccanegra returned from Pisa at this juncture he was welcomed by the popolo, who besought him to place himself at their head. According to Foglietta, he had already determined to oust the Milanese, and proceeded indirectly towards his object by inciting the people to rise against the nobles. When once the strife had begun it was easy to direct the attack against the foreigners as well; and in 1356 both the Milanese and the nobles were defeated and driven out, while Boccanegra once more became Doge.
During the seven years of his second Dogate Genoa had peace, but in 1363 he was poisoned while entertaining the King of Cyprus. He was buried in S. Francesco di Castelletto, and the monument which was afterwards placed to his memory has been preserved in the Palazzo Bianco.
Gabriele Adorno succeeded him, and his first act was to pass a law excluding the nobles from all the offices of the Republic. It was a regulation which, by abolishing one evil, prepared the way for another; and throughout the succeeding century and a half the four families of Montaldi, Fregosi, Adorni and Guarchi, unchecked by the presence of the nobles, fought among themselves for the Dogate. Adorno, in 1370, was replaced by Domenico Fregoso, and he in turn was superseded by Antoniotto Adorno in 1378.
The struggle with Venice had in the meantime received a fresh impulse, the chief reason alleged by the historians of both Republics being that the rival merchants had come to blows in 1372 in Cyprus. Another dispute arose in 1377 over the ownership of Tenedos, and it was immediately after this that hostilities began in earnest. Calogioanni, Emperor of Constantinople, left the throne at his death to Manuel, passing over the claim of Andronicus, his elder son; and the latter, in order to enforce his rights, formed an alliance with the Genoese while Manuel leagued with Venice. Both contestants promised the Island of Tenedos to their supporters as a reward.
Yet Constantinople scarcely figures in the strife,
for when the Venetians had seized Tenedos, refusing to give it up at the request of the Genoese, and war was declared, the issue was decided in the Adriatic. While Genoa leagued with the Carrara, Lords of Padua, with Aquileia and with the King of Hungary, Venice sought and obtained the support of Milan, though their ally seems only to have concerned herself with despatching marauding bands to harry the Genoese territories.
The Genoese ordered Luciano D' Oria to attack Venice; and passing the Venetian fleet under Vettore Pisano without giving battle, he contrived to reach Pola, where he was unsuccessfully assailed by the enemy. On the departure of the Venetian fleet, Luciano removed to Zara where he established his base, and finding that Pisano had taken possession of Pola, attacked him there in 1379, and gained one more of the victories recorded on the church of San Matteo.
Pisano was thrown into prison on his return to Venice; and while Pietro D' Oria, who succeeded to the command on the death of Luciano at Pola, sailed into the Adriatic with fifteen galleys, Carlo Zeno with nine vessels entered Ligurian waters to do what damage he might, in happy ignorance of the course events had taken nearer home.
For the second time Venice lay at the mercy of her rival, and might have been taken without a blow had the new admiral sailed into the lagoon immediately. But his orders were to sack the city if he took it. . "he was not to leave in it a single noble, great or small; all were to be taken and sent to Genoa, excepting only those whose heads were demanded by the Lord of Padua."1 Accordingly he waited for
1 Vincens, Histoirc de la Ripublique de GUnes, book v., chap. vii.
reinforcements, and only when his fleet had been increased to eighty-four galleys with other vessels bringing up the total to two hundred and ten sail,1 did he approach the city in earnest, crying. . "A Venezia, a Venezia, e viva San Giorgio."
The lagoons of Venice have greatly changed since Fra Giocondo, at the end of the sixteenth century, altered the mouth of the Brenta, and caused the lagoon of Chioggia to fill up with silt. The town of Chioggia stood on two islands, forming part of the narrow bank which protects Venice from the strength of the Adriatic; and north and south of these islands there were navigable channels connecting the lagoon and the sea.
The citizens of Venice were dazed by the terrible calamity which seemed imminent, and for some days they made no attempt to cope with the situation. The galleys lying in the Arsenal remained unheeded; but when at length they awoke from their stupor a fleet of rowing boats was despatched to close the channels leading to the lagoon.
Reaching the neighbourhood of Venice at the beginning of August 1379, D1 Oria found the northern passages already sealed; but entering by the Canale di Brondolo, he proceeded to attack Chioggia. After desperate fighting the city fell on August 16th, and the news of this fresh disaster forced the Signoria to ask peace. Ambassadors were sent to Treviso to treat with Francesco di Carrara,2 while all the Genoese who were in prison in Venice—there were
1 Chinazzo, Cronaca della Guerra di Chitnza. Foglietta says there were only sixty.
a Chinazzo and Foscarini's notes. The statements of Genoese writers that the ambassadors were sent to Pietro D' Oria are not borne out by Venetian historians.
only seven of them—were sent as a present to D' Oria, who returned them, saying haughtily that he would come and release them himself.
Carrara proved equally arrogant, and the terms he offered were so cruel that Venice in desperation resolved to fight on rather than accept them. Foscarini tells how the great bell of St. Mark summoned all the people together, and that they stood in great fear of what was to come. Twelve galleys were brought out of the arsenal, and when Taddeo Giustiniani was made admiral, the sailors refused to serve unless Vettore Pisano was released and given the command. "And all the people," says Foscarini, "cried out as with one voice . . 'If we are to go out and fight in these galleys give us Messer Vettor Pisano for our captain!' And at a late hour on the same evening the sailors and many others of the people came together in the courtyard of the Palazzo and cried with a loud voice. . 'Viva, viva Messer Vettor Pisan!' And hearing their shouts he came to the grating and cried . . 'Viva Messer San Marcho !'"
"Now when Messer lo Doxe and the Signoria heard of it and saw the multitude in the courtyard of the Palazzo, and that all the Piazza di San Marco was likewise full of people, Messer Vettore was brought from his prison. And Messer lo Doxe with the Signoria went to meet him at the steps, and led him to the altar of San Marcho, and gave the gonfalon of the Republic into his hands. And the people continued to shout. . 'Viva, viva Messer Vettor Pisan!' But he said to them . . 'Be silent, be silent my children; Viva San Marcho!' Then he departed to his own house . . and you must know that from San Marcho to San Fantin where he dwelt, you could not have dropped one grain of seed to the ground, so great was the crush."
While the Genoese were steadily pushing forward and had established their outposts on the island of Malamocco, the enthusiasm which had been aroused in Venice by the appointment of Pisano had an instantaneous effect. The thirty-three galleys, all that lay in the arsenal, were rapidly equipped; and when, on November 24th, the fleet, with the Doge himself on board, took the offensive, D' Oria was compelled to draw back, holding only Chioggia and Brondolo.
At the beginning of the following year, 1380, Carlo Zeno returned with a fleet of fifteen galleys; and an attack on the Genoese in Chioggia having failed, it was decided to close the channels still remaining open and thus to imprison the hostile ships. At dead of night the Venetians pulled out to effect their purpose, but the sound of their dipping oars betrayed their approach and the alarm was given. For three days and nights the Genoese fought desperately to prevent the enemy carrying out their intention, and though they succeeded in burning to the waterline the ships destined to block the channels the hulks were sunk in the waterway and secured with piles.
D' Oria was trapped, and a valiant attempt to escape by the passage of Brondolo, the only one still open, was frustrated. Following up their advantage the Venetians next attacked the Monastery of San Michele on the island of Brondolo, and while fighting bravely against immense odds, Pietro D' Oria was killed. It was the death blow to any hopes the Genoese might have nursed of escaping from the dilemma in which they found themselves; and retiring to Chioggia to wait the turn of events, they
were obliged to set fire to many of their galleys to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy.
In Genoa Napoleone Grimaldi had been appointed to succeed D' Oria; but neither he, nor the relief fleet, nor yet the vigorous attacks of Carrara against Treviso were sufficient to distract the attention of Venice from Chioggia. Venice was intent on avenging the past; and when the besieged essayed to destroy the barricades with a fleet of boats made from the ruined houses of the Chioggiotti they were driven back with terrible loss. When the women and children were sent out from the famished city they were driven back to swell the number of hungry mouths and to hasten the end . . deserters were ruthlessly put to death, to deter others from following their example and so that the demand on the lessening supplies might suffer no diminution. By March, bread was the only article of food in the town, and leather soaked in salt water was regarded as a luxury only to be purchased by the wealthy.
In the middle of the month of June came the closing scene. The Genoese were obliged to surrender unconditionally, and on the 24th the Venetian fleet with the Doge and Signoria, and the two Admirals Carlo Zeno and Vettore Pisano, sailed to Chioggia and took possession of it together with the remnant of the garrison. The prisoners numbered about 4000; and nineteen galleys fell into the hands of the victors.1
Gasparo Spinola endeavoured to carry on the war by raiding the territories of Venice, but in 1382 he returned to Genoa, summoned to quell the local dis
1 Chinazzo places the prisoners at 4000 and the galleys at twenty-one. Foscarini says there were 4300 Genoese and 270 Paduan prisoners with nineteen galleys.
turbances which had once more broken out in the Riviera. Both Venice and Genoa were tired of war and the offer of the Count of Savoy to act as arbitrator was gratefully accepted. The terms of this peace, so far as they concern the two Republics, were that prisoners and lands which had changed hands were to be restored . . Tenedos was to belong to neither, and the fort on that island was to be destroyed, the Venetians inviting the rival claimant to send a representative to see it demolished. Thus ended a war which Foglietta justly describes as "lamentable and pestiferous."
The usual internal discords had been silenced by the need for combined action against the enemy. The government still rested in the hands of the strongest party, who elected the Doge, and he invariably remained in office only so long as no other faction succeeded in turning him out. Between 1383 and 1394 there were twelve changes in the Dogate. The last of these, Antoniotto Adorno, self-elected in the latter year, finding that his position was showing signs of weakness, persuaded the Signoria to call in the aid of Charles VI. of France, and the Dogate was abolished while Adorno retained his hold upon the Republic by securing his appointment as temporary Governor.
Antoniotto was succeeded in 1397 by a new Governor, a Frenchman, and entirely unprepared for the methods • of the Genoese. Neither he nor his successors were capable of dealing with the sudden and apparently unpremeditated revolts by which the city was periodically shaken, and their first act was to get away as quickly as might be and leave the factions to their own devices. When the plague broke out in the same year it afforded an additional excuse for deserting his post, and the Ghibellines with 8000 and the Guelfs with 3000 adherents immediately fortified the two halves of the town and fought on without interruption for nine weeks. On one day alone twenty-two "most beautiful palaces of great value" were sacked and burnt; and when at length arms were laid down the damage done amounted to a million florins.
Finding that his former Governors had proved inefficient, Charles appointed Jean le Maingre, or Boucicault, Marshal of France, in 1401. A man who, under a religious exterior, hid an ambitious nature, he began by abolishing all the minor offices except that of the Podesta, saying that they were now merged in himself. . and after plunging the Republic into a disastrous war with Venice his thoughts were fortunately diverted by the death of the Duke of Milan, leaving infant sons to succeed him. Boucicault resolved to share in the scramble which ensued for the broad territories of the Duchy, and took the field in 1409 at the head of a Genoese army, equipped by Genoese money, leaving Ugo Scolet as ViceGovernor. Boucicault was defeated at Tortona by the combined forces of Milan, Venice, and Ferrara; and on receipt of the news the Genoese rose against their foreign masters. Scolet was slain, and those of his bodyguard who did not escape from the city were shut up in the Castelletto. In the meanwhile the political refugees from the Republic had joined the camps of either Facino Cane or the Marchese di Monferrato, both of whom were advancing on Genoa by different routes for the avowed purpose of freeing the city from the yoke of France, and nursing the secret hope of succeeding to the lordship. Had the two armies been allowed to meet they would inevitably come to blows, and accordingly Facino was bought off for 30,000 Genovini while the Marchese di Monferrato was made Governor for a year with the same salary that had been formerly paid to the Doge. Boucicault returned to find himself superseded; and after an abortive attempt on Finale and Savona made his way back to France.
As on former occasions the Genoese rapidly wearied of their new friends and in 1413 the Monferrini were driven from the territories of the Republic, while an honest attempt was made to organise the state in such a manner as to render these appeals to foreign powers unnecessary. At a general consiglio Giorgio Adorno, brother of Antoniotto, was elected Doge. . the threatened reprisals of Monferrato were averted by a payment of 24,000 crowns, and a new mode of election to the supreme magistracy was drawn up and approved. Though these regulations became law they seem to have done but little good, and after a civil war of more than a year's duration the Doge was summoned to resign. It is needless to follow the history of all the Doges. Whenever the Adorni were in power the Fregosi were banished; and whenever the Fregosi returned the Adorni were sent into exile. Neither party was sufficiently strong to assert a permanent mastery. . each showed itself more capable of obtaining power than of holding it. . and finally, neither the Fregosi nor the Adorni were actuated by motives of patriotism, nor were they above enlisting the services of Genoa's enemies in order to attain their own ends. The Genoese character lacked that stern power for cruelty and mystery which made the Dogate of Venice possible, while the popolo, hoping to gain advantages from supporting an individual rather than fearing the retribution of some terrible Council of Ten, drifted from one party to the other according to the inducements of the moment . Milan, Arragon and France did all in their power to promote the condition of anarchy . . and when at length a patriotic Doge arose in the person of Tommaso Fregoso, though he sold his plate in 1420 to fit out a fleet which held the Arragonese in check in Corsica, he was unable to resist the attack of the Milanese. Leghorn was sold for 120,000 ducats and the money spent in an endeavour to keep the enemy at bay . . but resistance was useless and the Signoria of Genoa was given to the Visconti at the end of 1421, nominally under the same terms as those under which Charles VI. had previously held it for France.
From the outset the Milanese rulers behaved with an arrogance which boded no good to the Repulic. All the bells were removed from the Polcevera valley in order that the people should not for the future be called to arms with such unpleasant promptitude, and many of the outlying feuds were given to nobles whose loyalty to Milan was beyond doubt, so that any hostile movementwould be difficult, if not impossible. Oppizino d'Alzate, whom the Genoese afterwards murdered, came as Commissario Ducale in 1425 and drove the citizens to the verge of distraction by his acts of tyranny. Then the war of the Neapolitan Succession broke out; and Genoa was dragged into it, partly by the Milanese and partly by the request of Gaeta that a force might be sent to protect the city during the vicissitudes of the war. A fleet of nineteen galleys was hastily equipped and put under the command of Biagio
Assereto who, sailing in the direction of Naples, came up with the enemy near Ponza in 1435 and gained what may be regarded as a remarkable victory. This great achievement Assereto himself describes in a letter to the Senate on August 6th. "Twelve ships out of the king's fleet have been abandoned by their crews, one of their ships was burnt and another sunk . . two of them drew away from the battle and have escaped to tell the news. We have captured the King of Arragon and the King of Navarre, the Grand Master of the Order of St. James, the Duke of Sessa, the Prince of Taranto, the Viceroy of Sicily and many other barons, knights and gentlemen, with Meneguccio de l' Aquila, captain of three hundred lances; and the prisoners number thousands of thousands" (re prexoin son migiara de migiara).
It was indeed pleasant news that reached Genoa from over the sea. As the breath of it spread, shops began to close and merchants and magistrates came out from their houses and collected in knots in the public squares. It seemed as though the glorious enterprises of other days which had so suddenly ceased after the Battle of Pola were to begin afresh, and the city made great preparations to receive the admiral and his illustrious prisoners.
Suddenly a messenger arrived from Milan to say that the captives were not to be landed in Genoa but were to be disembarked at Savona and to go direct to Milan. The citizens were thunderstruck; the vision of treaties which would leave the Republic mistress of the Mediterranean was rudely dispersed. The odious yoke would doubtless have been shaken off directly had it been possible; but there were two thousand of Milan's mercenaries within the walls, and the Visconti held every important fortress about the city. The King of Arragon, the enemy whom Genoa had captured by her own unaided effort, was received at Milan as a friend, and the Duke scornfully commanded the Genoese to arrange for the conveyance of Alfonso back to Spain.
It was then that the citizens rebelled against such treatment and drove out the hated foreigners, killing the Governor before the church of San Siro.
Free for a time from the control of a foreign potentate the restless Republic again elected a Doge in the person of Isnardo Guarchi, and again fell back into the confusion of civil broils. . to be followed by the inevitable submission to France or Milan. Such was the blindness of the Genoese in their dissensions that out of the period which elapsed between 1400 and 1528 the Republic was under the control of extraneous rulers for eighty-one years. The power and prosperity of the state which had begun to decline after the disastrous war of Chioggia continued its retrograde movement, and although Andrea D' Oria in the Year of Liberty once more freed the city from external supervision, America and the passage round the Cape of Good Hope had already been discovered, and Genoa had lost all her colonies, including those of Pera and in the Black Sea.
Isnardo Guarchi, elected in 1436, was succeeded almost immediately by the patriotic Tommaso Fregoso . . and Fregoso was driven out by the Adorni and Milanese in 1442. Raffaele Adorno became Doge; and the Fregosi, being expelled, in their turn besought the friendship of Milan.
Occupied in this manner with their internal struggles, the Genoese paid little heed to the preparations of the King of Arragon, who chafed under the remembrance of his capture at Ponza. He made peace with Milan and Venice in 1455 and was thus free to give full scope to his resentment. As a consequence of his threatening attitude Charles VII. of France was made Lord of Genoa and its territories. From 1458 to 1461 French Governors ruled the town, and all attempts to remove the self-imposed yoke proved unsuccessful. For once thepopolo showed no inclination to rise; and when Pietro Fregoso forced his way into Genoa the gates were closed behind him and all chance of escape cut off. Unsupported and alone Pietro rode madly from gate to gate to see if any were still open, only to be obliged to turn his horse back again into the heart of the city. He was recognised by the crest on his helmet, and as he spurred away from the Porta degli Archi "Giovanni Cossa came up and dealt him two blows with a battle-axe full upon the helm; and still his charger bore him away to the Porta di Sant' Andrea, where he was again wounded by a shower of stones from the roofs. And nigh to the Palazzo Pubblico he fell fainting from his horse and was carried to the palace more dead than living; where he died a few hours later without having spoken."1
After his death the oppression of the French was redoubled and at length became so intolerable that the Fregosi and Adorni actually combined against them. In 1461 the French were ousted from Genoa with Milanese help and the Adorni and Fregosi immediately fell to fighting for the Dogate with such vigour that in 1464 the then Doge, Paolo Fregoso, was driven from office and Francesco Sforza, Duke of 1 Giustiniani, Annali, vol. ii. p. 416.
Milan, invited to accept the position from which the French had been driven with so much trouble three years before. In such wise did the Genoese wilfully work their own ruin. It is not surprising that in the same year Famagusta had to be relinquished; nor that in 1465 the island of Corsica was given into the safer keeping of the bank of St. George; nor that in 1475 Caffa and all the Black Sea colonies were swept from the possession of Genoa
When the rule of Milan had endured twelve years, it happened that Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the Duke, was assassinated, and the ensuing period of confusion was seized upon as a convenient opportunity for revolt . In 1477 the Milanese garrison was overpowered; and for a few months Genoa ruled herself by means of six Captains of Liberty; until, in fact, the Milanese returned in force in the following year and retook the city. The expedition was led by Prospero Adorno, a former Doge, who had been commissioned by Sforza to remain as Ducal Governor. But the people, with the usual mutability of the Genoese, proclaimed him Doge instead, and Prospero drove out the army which a few months before had brought him to the city.
The rage of Milan at this treachery was quickly shown by the enormous army which was despatched down the valley of the Polcevera. Twenty-eight thousand foot soldiers heavily armed advanced towards the city; and to oppose them Adorno and Roberto di Sanseverino massed all the available forces of the Republic on the heights to the north. Encumbered by their acoutrements and unused to fighting among the hills the issue was never in doubt for a moment. The Milanese broke and fled in all directions, only to fall into the hands of the mountaineers who had collected with the hope of plunder, and by whom they were despoiled not only of their arms but even of their clothes; so that "it was a sight not so much to excite pity as provoking mirth to see the greater part of the army stalking back to Milan in the condition in which they were born and carrying branches of trees and wisps of straw to cover their shame instead of the booty they had expected to take in Genoa." 1
Then followed the customary revolutions, Prospero being removed after a more than usually fierce battle in which the Adorni, having captured thirteen of the Fregosi at the first attack, hung them all on a hastily constructed gallows in front of the Palazzo Pubblico and tried to keep their friends at bay sufficiently long for the breath to be choked out of their miserable, writhing bodies. This cruelty caused many to desert the Adorni, and the Doge only contrived to escape by swimming out to a ship in the harbour.
Battista Fregoso, the next Doge, was removed by the wiles of Paolo his uncle; who, having cast him into prison in 1483, called the Senate and three hundred citizens together and asked them to name a successor.
Paolo himself was elected, and during his disastrous term of office Sarzana was lost in a war with Florence, and the Corsicans driven to distraction by the unpunished misdeeds of his hirelings . . then, seeing that he was likely to go the way of his predecessors, he implored Lodovico Sforza, reigning Duke of Milan, to assist him in maintaining his position, and had only time to escape to the Castelletto before the storm burst forth in 1488. The result of this upheaval was
1 A. Gallo, in Rer. It. Script., Toi. xxiii. col. 291.
to make Sforza Overlord of the Republic; while Paolo was offered a pension of 6000 florins with permission to dwell in Genoa provided he kept out of politics and devoted his whole attention to matters concerning the Church.
With the advent of Charles VIII. the place of Genoa in European politics was completely altered. From a Power the Republic became little more than a strategic position in the wars of Europe and a source whence funds might be extracted at all times. Whatever changes occurred to Milan, France and Spain had their due effect on the maritime city. Thus it was that Genoa remained tolerably happy and prosperous under the Milanese rule until, on the death of Charles in 1498, Louis XII., a monarch of very different character, succeeded to the throne of France. I n the following year he captured Milan . . and, there being no other course open, Genoa, too, accepted him as Lord.
The burden laid upon the city by successive kings and dukes had been hard to bear, but that which the Genoese were now called upon to support surpassed all others, while the chances of regaining their freedom were proportionately less. It was evident that Louis meant to deprive the Republic of all free action; and when Pisa, oppressed by the unceasing assaults of Florence, offered herself for the acceptance of the Genoese, the French monarch refused to allow the negotiations to be continued. Yet in other directions his conduct gave satisfaction, for when the popolo claimed the right to fill two-thirds of the public offices1 Philippe von Ravenstein, the Governer, granted
1 On the basis that the town was divided into the three orders; "doe in cittadini nobili, in cittadini mercadanti, e in cittadini artefici, le due parti dei quali sono popolari" (Giustiniani, vol. ii. p. 616).
the request. Having unexpectedly gained their point they elected eight tribunes as an opposition to the government and seized the Riviera from Gian Luigi Fieschi who held it for France.
Louis was at war with Spain and too occupied at the moment to be able to punish the misdeeds of the tribunes; but when the King of Spain died in 1507 Louis marched on Genoa in person, refusing to hear the ambassadors whom the Republic now thought fit to send in the hope of making terms. The position was desperate, and knowing that little clemency might be expected from the attitude of the king, Paolo di Novi, a silk dyer, was elected Doge and urged to take whatever defensive measures were possible. His forces fled as soon as the vanguard of the French army reached the neighbourhood, and on April 28 Louis entered Genoa, where executions and banishments became the order of the day.
Such was the lot of the Republic so long as the fortune of war smiled on France; but when the League of Cambrai launched its armies against Louis, the Genoese, favoured by the Pope, himself a native of Savona, grew bolder in proportion as the difficulties of France increased. At last, in 1512, the French were driven out, only to return on the death of the Pope; and Genoa would have doubtless once more felt the weight of Louis's anger had he not been opportunely defeated at Novara in the following year. In place of the French the Republic was immediately overrun by Spaniards, three thousand of whom marched to Pontedecimo in the Polcevera valley in support of Ottaviano Fregoso, who was endeavouring to enter the city and seize the Dogate.
When Louis died in 1514 many of the European states declared war on his successor, Francis I.; and again Genoa the Distracted had to choose which of the contending parties should be asked to save her from submersion. Once more the lordship was given to France.
The position of Genoa was lamentable indeed. Her geographical situation forced her into the thick of the strife, where she bore the buffets without sharing in the advantages which accrued from the war. It is surprising that the citizens took sufficient interest in the welfare of the state even to attempt internal reforms; yet in 15 21 the Doge. Ottaviano Fregoso, began that readjustment of the government which was brought to perfection in 1528 under Andrea D' Oria, with the permission of Charles V., King of Spain and Emperor, who succeeded Maximilian in 1519.
With the accession of Charles, the war received a fresh impulse. Milan, Lodi, Como, Pavia, Piacenza and Cremona were captured in quick succession, while Genoa was captured in 1522 and for two days Spaniards, Italians, Germans and—be it said to their shame—Fieschi and Adorni, sacked and burnt at their pleasure.
For the next five years the Republic was obliged to pay 8000 ducats a month to Spain for the privilege of being a dependent state. When it is added that during these years the plague was at its height in the city it seems incredible that it should have contrived to live through the storm.
France was disposed of for the time being by the capture of Francis at Pavia in 1525, and the Pope promoted a Holy League with the object of driving the Spaniards from Italy; and among other things of restoring the Signoria of Genoa to France. Andrea
D' Oria, then in the service of Francis, seized the Riviera, blockaded the city by land and sea and prevented the arrival of a relief fleet from Spain. At length, and for the last time until the wars of Napoleon, Genoa surrendered to a foreign lord, and once more accepted Francis as her master in 1527. That monarch, profiting by past failures to hold Genoa with a firm grip, resolved to reduce the opulent city by setting up Savona as a free port and rival. The harbour was dredged and fortifications thrown up to the dismay of the Genoese . . and even the entreaties of Andrea D' Oria, Admiral of France, were of no avail to move Francis from his purpose. It has been claimed for Andrea that his sole object in accepting French employment was to free Genoa from Spain; and though it is a question which must be more fully considered elsewhere, it is clear that one reason for his secession to Spain was the resolute opposition of France to the Republic. His first act on becoming admiral in chief of the Spanish navy was to free Genoa from her French masters and to give the city what it had not possessed since the days of Simone Boccanegra—a properly and self-elected government free from the interference of foreigners.
Much had been written concerning the liberty which Andrea D' Oria gave back to the Republic; and the last word has, perhaps, still to be said. It is true that while he lived his personality had an undue weight in the deliberations of the Consigli, yet the constitution which permitted it was drawn up by men who had been appointed before he came as a deliverer. This is a point of the greatest importance in summing up the position. It is also true that Genoa was placed in a state of moral dependence on Spain; but it must be remembered that the days when Europe was split up into small states of approximately equal strength were gone. Genoa was surrounded by the vastly superior powers which had grown up in the west and south; and it was absolutely necessary for the Senate to have a strong ally in the background. It suited Andrea D 'Oria that Spain should be that ally, and it suited Charles perhaps even more . . for throughout all the turmoil the Banca di San Giorgio, as we shall see later, stood unwavering, while the public treasury was in the safe keeping of eight Procuratori, who were themselves controlled by the Censori. While Genoa remained the ally of the Emperor her fleets, her admirals, her harbour and the vast riches of her nobles1 were at his service. Should other ways into Italy be denied him, there was always the " Door of Italy "—Genoa—open to admit him to the coveted land. To acknowledge Charles as her lord seemed the only way for La Superba to escape submersion.
It was impossible to place the insignificant Republic on a basis of complete independence. But it was possible to bring about a condition in which the city might be free to elect its own Doges, to promulgate its own laws and to see that they were obeyed.
This Andrea D' Oria did, and therefore it is that he is fully entitled to that proud name which a grateful people gave to him . . "Father and Liberator of his Country."
1 In 1626 the Spinola family alone are reputed to have held possessions worth 16,000,000 lire, while their palaces in Genoa and Sampierdarena were twelve in number.
CHAPTER III
HISTORICAL SURVEY, 1528 TO 1797 HE events following immediately after the arrival of D' Oria and which preceded the
reconstitution of the state may be dismissed with few words. The French Governor had retired to the Castelletto to await assistance from outside, so that it was imperative that prompt action should be taken to prevent the recapture of the city. Filippino D' Oria attacked the Castelletto with all the available forces of the Republic, when the arrival of a herald announcing the approach of Francois Bourbon with 4000 men and summoning the town to surrender on pain of "war, fire, and of all possible tortures and cruelties," obliged the Genoese to leave the siege and man the walls. With great difficulty the Genoese were restrained from killing the bearer of such a message on the spot; but wiser counsels prevailing he was led through the streets to judge for himself whether the defences were in good order and well equipped, and told to carry back news of all that he saw to Bourbon. Wherever he went the streets were thronged with pike and crossbowmen and with men at arms; and in order to enhance the impression, each group, as soon as the French emissary had passed hurried away by back alleys to form up elsewhere along the route.1
Bonfadio, Annates, sub anno.
D' Oria, then in the service of Francis, seized the Riviera, blockaded the city by land and sea and prevented the arrival of a relief fleet from Spain. At length, and for the last time until the wars of Napoleon, Genoa surrendered to a foreign lord, and once more accepted Francis as her master in 1527. That monarch, profiting by past failures to hold Genoa with a firm grip, resolved to reduce the opulent city by setting up Savona as a free port and rival. The harbour was dredged and fortifications thrown up to the dismay of the Genoese . . and even the entreaties of Andrea D' Oria, Admiral of France, were of no avail to move Francis from his purpose. It has been claimed for Andrea that his sole object in accepting French employment was to free Genoa from Spain; and though it is a question which must be more fully considered elsewhere, it is clear that one reason for his secession to Spain was the resolute opposition of France to the Republic. His first act on becoming admiral in chief of the Spanish navy was to free Genoa from her French masters and to give the city what it had not possessed since the days of Simone Boccanegra—a properly and self-elected government free from the interference of foreigners.
Much had been written concerning the liberty which Andrea D' Oria gave back to the Republic; and the last word has, perhaps, still to be said. It is true that while he lived his personality had an undue weight in the deliberations of the Consigli, yet the constitution which permitted it was drawn up by men who had been appointed before he came as a deliverer. This is a point of the greatest importance in summing up the position. It is also true that Genoa was placed in a state of moral dependence on Spain; but it must be remembered that the days when Europe was split up into small states of approximately equal strength were gone. Genoa was surrounded by the vastly superior powers which had grown up in the west and south; and it was absolutely necessary for the Senate to have a strong ally in the background. It suited Andrea D 'Oria that Spain should be that ally, and it suited Charles perhaps even more . . for throughout all the turmoil the Banca di San Giorgio, as we shall see later, stood unwavering, while the public treasury was in the safe keeping of eight Procuratori, who were themselves controlled by the Censori. While Genoa remained the ally of the Emperor her fleets, her admirals, her harbour and the vast riches of her nobles1 were at his service. Should other ways into Italy be denied him, there was always the " Door of Italy "—Genoa—open to admit him to the coveted land. To acknowledge Charles as her lord seemed the only way for La Superba to escape submersion.
It was impossible to place the insignificant Republic on a basis of complete independence. But it was possible to bring about a condition in which the city might be free to elect its own Doges, to promulgate its own laws and to see that they were obeyed.
This Andrea D' Oria did, and therefore it is that he is fully entitled to that proud name which a grateful people gave to him . . "Father and Liberator of his Country."
1 In 1626 the Spinola family alone are reputed to have held possessions worth 16,000,000 lire, while their palaces in Genoa and Sampierdarena were twelve in number.
CHAPTER III
HISTORICAL SURVEY, 1528 TO 1797 HE events following immediately after the arrival of D' Oria and which preceded the
reconstitution of the state may be dismissed with few words. The French Governor had retired to the Castelletto to await assistance from outside, so that it was imperative that prompt action should be taken to prevent the recapture of the city. Filippino D' Oria attacked the Castelletto with all the available forces of the Republic, when the arrival of a herald announcing the approach of Francois Bourbon with 4000 men and summoning the town to surrender on pain of "war, fire, and of all possible tortures and cruelties," obliged the Genoese to leave the siege and man the walls. With great difficulty the Genoese were restrained from killing the bearer of such a message on the spot; but wiser counsels prevailing he was led through the streets to judge for himself whether the defences were in good order and well equipped, and told to carry back news of all that he saw to Bourbon. Wherever he went the streets were thronged with pike and crossbowmen and with men at arms; and in order to enhance the impression, each group, as soon as the French emissary had passed hurried away by back alleys to form up elsewhere along the route.1
Bonfadio, Annates, sub anno.
agreed that all who had dropped their own names should once more assume them.
For more than a century the House of Savoy had been steadily increasing in power and importance. Under Amadeo IX. in 1465 the Counts had changed their title for that of Duke; and when Carlo Emanuele succeeded to the throne in 1580 and married the daughter of Philip II. of Spain, he seemed likely to prove a troublesome neighbour to the declining Republic. Genoa, indeed, was in a sad quandary, fearing at any moment to be engulfed by Spain or France; and now that Savoy was allied with the former by marriage the outlook was more uncertain still. Carlo Emanuele was a man of ambitious character, and initiated a scheme of expansion by purchasing Oneglia from the D' Oria and seizing Saluzzo from France. Nor was this the only blow which the Republic was called upon to bear, for Spain had already taken away Finale and endeavoured to set it up as a rival to Genoa, as the French had done with Savona.
But the astute Savoyard was not long in discovering that while he did most of the work the larger portion of the profits resulting from the war accrued to Spain, and in 1613 Carlo Emanuele transferred his allegiance to France, so that when, ten years later, Genoa and Savoy came to blows for the possession of Zucarello, a small town in the hills above Albenga and on the confines of the two states, Savoy was supported by France while Philip immediately placed his vast resources at the service of the Republic. Genoa refused the offer, suspecting that the assistance of Spain might lead to fresh slavery. The Spanish governor of Milan, however, held 25,000 men on the borders of Lombardy ready to attack the FrancoSavoyards, and by menacing their communications rendered the advance on Genoa an undertaking of the greatest risk. The city itself threw up a new line of defences.
It is strange that with the enemy at their gates the Genoese could not forego their love of pageantry. Ovada, Gavi, Novi had fallen; the vanguard was already at Rossiglione; yet we find the Commissioners writing to the Senate in 1626 and drawing up the ceremonial for laying the foundation stone of the new walls. There is to be a magnificent procession of the Magistrates and clergy to the Lanterna, where Mass is to be sung in the open air. . and at the Mass " and likewise at the moment when the foundation stone is laid there must be a great number of singers and musicians, and besides those who belong to the churches it will be as well to command the presence of other musicians. At the elevation of the Host, and also at the moment of laying the stone, all the guns of the city, the Molo and at the Lanterna shall fire a salute, as well as those on the galleys, which are to collect near the Lanterna when the sea is smooth, to do honour to the event. And if there be any private galleys, or ships belonging to foreign fleets in the city, they shall be invited to do the same." 1
The war thus begun with Savoy dragged on with varying activity. The French and Savoyards were too distrustful of each other to be able to make a serious advance, and they dared not proceed beyond Rossiglione lest the Spaniards in Milan should cut their lines of communication. When France and Spain withdrew their support in 1626, Savoy con
1 Olivieri, Medagtioiu Storico Genovese.
tinued the campaign unassisted, while Genoa had to combat the forces of the Duchy as well as traitors within the city. The conspiracy of Giulio Casare Vacchero in 1628 was designed to place the Republic in the hands of Savoy, but though Carlo Emanuele withdrew at the last moment Vacchero continued to plot on his own behalf. His machinations were discovered, and Vacchero being found guilty was executed and his house destroyed. The spot where it stood remains to this day a desolate waste.
The position of the Republic was worse than it had ever been. Though a temporary peace was made with Savoy in 1633, that state constituted a perpetual menace to Genoa . . and to add to the unrest a conspiracy headed by Gianpaolo Balbi, by which the French were to be introduced into the city, was discovered in 1648. The question of Finale, too, grew hourly more pressing; for the arrogant behaviour of the Finalini, basking in the favour of Spain, threatened to involve Genoa in fresh troubles with that power. As if these misfortunes were not sufficient, an outbreak of plague in 1656-57 depopulated the city and carried off one hundred thousand victims in Genoa and the Riviera.
Ten years later hostilities with Savoy reached an acute stage, and though the whole of the fighting was along the frontiers of the rival states there arose a third conspiracy under the leadership of Raffaele della Torre which threatened, if successful, to place the Republic in the hands of Carlo Emanuele II., in 1671. Happily for Genoa, however, the plot was revealed by one of the conspirators, and della Torre fled for his life; while the Savoyard armies, led by mutually distrustful generals, were attacked in detail and gradually pressed back. A peace ensued between the two belligerents in 1673, by which neither side gained the smallest advantage.
The accession of the warlike Louis XIV., surnamed the Great, to the throne of France in 1643 steeped Europe in wars which only terminated at the conference of Nimwegen in 1678, as the result of which Louis made advantageous treaties with Holland, Spain, and the German Princes. Throughout these campaigns Genoa had looked on and trembled, careful that no action on her part should bring the Republic into the struggle. But, at the zenith of his power, Louis determined to find an excuse for attacking her; and did not have to seek in vain. The Fieschi, banished after the conspiracy of 1547, had attached themselves to his court, and Louis demanded that their broad lands should be restored to the family. He commanded the Genoese to disarm four galleys which had been equipped against the Algerian pirates, pretending to believe that they were intended to serve Spain in the war against France which broke out in the year 1683. With these and similar requests the Republic refused to comply, and accordingly a fleet of more than a hundred sail entered the harbour in 1684 and kept up a bombardment for eleven days. The Senate remained heroically obstinate, and the French ships were obliged to sail back to France without having accomplished their object.
It was but a brief respite, however; and when Spain made a treaty with France in August of the same year, there was no other course open than that of submission. The Pope agreed to intercede with Louis, but that monarch replied that he would make no terms unless the Doge and four of the Senatori presented themselves at Versailles to crave pardon in person; a bitter pill which the helpless Republic was forced to swallow. The lawyers were called upon to prove that the Doge, "though a member of the Government did not in himself on that account represent the Republic " ;1 but such a quibble deceived nobody, and both the Doge and Signoria keenly felt the disgrace.
On May 15th, 1685, the Doge and four Senators presented themselves at Versailles where Louis received them in great state, and on the 26th they returned to Genoa quietly and without any public demonstration. By the terms then made the Fieschi were to be reinstated and paid one hundred thousand scudi; the four galleys were to be disarmed and all treaties hostile to France annulled; while the Spanish troops in the city were to be sent away. France seems to have aimed at making Genoa a neutral port, favouring neither belligerent; and accordingly, during the war which succeeded the League made at Augsburg for the purpose of opposing Louis in 1686, the Republic was allowed to play the part of a spectator. It was the same with the war of the Spanish Succession; and when peace was signed at Utrecht in 1713, the Duke of Savoy, Vittore Amadeo II., became King of Sardinia, and Genoa was allowed to buy back Finale from Spain for one million scudi, but still had to allow Spain the use of it in time of war.
The position in Corsica was, meanwhile, growing desperate, and the time fast approaching when the Republic was destined to lose this last shred of foreign
1 " II Doge (era) membro del Governo, ma non rappresentante percio da se la Repubblica " (Casoni, Storia del Bombardamcnto, etc., p. 244).
dominion. The Corsican loved his rifle and his vendetta, and the possession of the one rendered the pursuit of the other easy. The island was ruled by a governor who held absolute power for the two years he was in office, and had certain subordinates to assist him, selected from good but poor families in Genoa. As might be expected, their rule was tyrannous and unjust, and they contrived to grow rich at the expense of the Corsicans. The rights of the islanders were curtailed in every possible manner. . they had no schoolmasters, and might not hold even the most insignificant post under the government. In 1715 the Senate ordered that no person should in future carry a gun, knife or stick; for since 1683—or within a period of thirty-two years—no less than twenty-nine thousand murders had been committed.1 Previous to this date, gun licences had been granted and half the revenue from this source had gone to the government while the rest found its way into the pockets of the tax collectors. Now that guns were prohibited, the collectors were deprived of a portion of their incomes, and the poll tax was increased in order to reimburse them. Poverty stricken, living in a sterile country and scorning to till the few fertile patches, the Corsicans were miserably poor, and not only unwilling to pay the increased taxation, but actually unable to pay the old.
In 1729 rebellion broke out anew with such suddenness that the Genoese were taken by surprise. The island was overrun, and the Senate, to save the situation, hired eight thousand German troops to prevent the capture of Bastla. In 1733 a peace was made in which Genoa agreed to remit all the old taxes,
1 Varese, Sloria della RepuWica di Genova, vol. vii. p. 184.
create an order of Corsican nobility with rights equal to those of the mainland, appoint a Minister of Corsican affairs who should reside in the Ligurian Capital, and establish a Chamber of Justice at Bastia. The friction continued, however, for the Republic regretted the concessions she had been obliged to make, and delayed executing them. Nor were the Corsicans less displeased. They looked for autonomy, and at the first sign of unrest the exiled chiefs returned to place themselves at the head of the revolt.
Two years later the island was declared a Republic, and the Genoese Statutes publicly burnt. . she replied by blockading the island, and had nearly starved the Corsicans into surrender when Theodore Baron von Neuhoff, an adventurer, landed in Corsica with guns, food and ammunition in support of the rebels, and had little difficulty in persuading them to elect him as their king. This was in April of 1736, and while his funds lasted King Theodore was popular among his subjects; but as he had led them to believe that the supplies he brought were but the prelude to others, which, as a matter of fact, did not exist, his ingenuity was taxed to the uttermost in supplying excuses for the delay. As a last resource he would walk up a neighbouring hill armed with a monstrous telescope, and scan the horizon in an ostentatious manner for the fleet which he had excellent reasons to know was not there. He soon fell into disfavour, and on November 1 1th deserted his kingdom, saying that he " could not understand the delay, and thought it necessary to go in person and hurry them up." He proceeded to Amsterdam, and the Dutch most disrespectfully cast his Majesty into prison for debt, and would doubtless have kept him there indefinitely had he not contrived to turn his misfortune to account by making treaties for commercial purposes between his captors and his kingdom, persuading the former to supply him with the sinews of war in return for gilded concessions. A second time Theodore went to Corsica, and increased the difficulties of Genoa by encouraging the rebels, forcing her to ask help from France. Not until the king's courage and funds again failed simultaneously, and he once more fled, did the insurgents lay down their arms.
An attempt to collect the taxes threw the island once more into a blaze (1742), and in January of the following year Neuhoff returned to Corsica, but immediately, and finally, retired.1
The war dragged on until in August 1744 peace was made, in which gun licenses were again granted, all past taxes were rescinded, and the islanders permitted to have a share in the government.
In the last great European struggle Genoa had contrived to remain neutral, but when the War of the Pragmatic Sanction broke out in 1744 the Republic threw in its lot with France, Spain and Naples, against the united forces of Sardinia, Austria and England. At the outset the allies of Genoa advanced rapidly into Italy, hoping to seize on Parma and Piacenza. But when at a later stage of the conflict the Spanish army holding Tortona suddenly withdrew into Savoy, Genoa lay unprotected against the approaching Austrians. The Spanish forces in the neighbourhood
1 This singular person eventually died in London after being incarcerated for debt, appropriately enough in the King's Bench prison. He lies buried in St. Anne's, Soho, where his tombstone, with an epitaph by Horace Walpole, may still be seen.
of the city fell back, and in December 1746 the enemy, under Botta-Adorno, encamped near the Polcevera. Resolutely clinging to its policy of not offending anybody, Genoa readily agreed to all that the Austrians demanded. The gates were given into their hands; Gavi was to be ceded; the Doge and six senators were to go to Vienna to demand pardon, and an enormous sum was to be paid over as tribute.
But while the attitude of the Senate was reflected by these concessions, the people by no means acquiesced in them, and it required little to stir them into active resistance. They complained that they were unable to collect sufficient money to pay the tribute. To this Adorno replied that " fire and the sword were magical things for raising money," while the Austrian soldiery added to the smouldering resentment by taking all they wanted, and paying as little for it as they felt inclined, which in most cases was nothing at all.
Elsewhere the Austro-Sards were attacking Antibes, and sent to Botta-Adorno for siege guns. He had none . . but those from the battery on Carignano were dragged to the harbour, while the Genoese looked on sullenly at the process. One of the mortars became embedded in the muddy slime of Portoria, and when the Austrians with blows and gibes forced the bystanders to help drag it along, the pent-up feelings of the people broke all bounds. A youth named Ballila, cruelly beaten by an Austrian, suddenly cried, "O che 1' inse !" (Oh that someone would begin ! ) and struck his tormentor dead to the ground; and in a moment the Austrians were set upon with irresistible fury. Hurrying breathlessly to the Palazzo Pubblico the people demanded arms from the Senate, saying, that " if the government did not know how to defend itself, let it trust in the people and they would save them." The Senate refused to listen, and even repulsed an attack on the armoury, giving throughout a miserable exhibition of cowardice and indecision. Not daring to help the insurgents, they would not assist the Austrians, who were obliged to beat a hasty retreat. Throughout the whole of the following day their attacks against the walls were heroically repulsed by the people, who again demanded arms; and, receiving none, at last broke into the shops and took what weapons they could find. Heavy guns were dragged up the steep steps of Pietraminuta, while the Universita was used as headquarters, and protected by two guns entrenched in the middle of the Strada Balbi.
On December 1oth the Austrians delivered a general assault on the city. Their guns swept the Strada Balbi, the Borgo di Pre and Sottoripa, while the Genoese replied with vigour from Pietraminuta and Castelletto. Every able-bodied man and boy, save only the cowardly Senate shut up in the Palazzo Pubblico, joined the fighting line; and while the men fought, the women and children collected in the churches where the priests exhibited the Sacrament as a means of stimulating the earnestness of their prayers. The bells were rung furiously, making a din which almost drowned the booming of the guns, and hid the cries of the dead and dying. Austrian discipline was powerless against the reckless daring and determination of the Genoese, and the attack failed. "On that tenth day of December Genoa awoke in Austrian thraldom; she retired to rest Genoese and free."1 Varese, op. cit, vol. viii. p. 105.
Only twelve Genoese were missing, while 1ooo Austrians were killed and 4000 taken prisoner.
The mortar which had stuck in the mud became an object of worship; and a few days later, placed on a gilded car and covered with banners and costly embroideries, it was drawn by eight milk white horses through the most populous streets. One great rose was stuck in the muzzle, from which fluttered a pennon with the name of the Virgin upon it. In front there went a company of grenadiers, and behind it a troop of sappers with silver spades. . then two battalions of infantry with their bands, and two hundred men on horseback with helmets and corselets, dragging the captured Austrian banners in the dirt. The streets were decorated with arches and hangings, while a tempest of flowers fell from the neighbouring houses. The day was given over to rejoicings, and a hymn written in honour of the mortar, beginning..—
"Bello Morta, care Morta, me coeu, Che de baxate no me so sazia, Donde voeilo moe fate porta Quello brutto abbrascao Botta la goeu ?" 1 Early in the following year the Austrians returned to the attack, and though they were driven back, the popolo, believing that the Senate had been in collusion with them, turned their wrath against the Palazzo Pubblico. In the meanwhile the position of the Austro-Sards around Genoa was growing untenable, owing to the steady advance of the French and
1 From Cadenna zentizedro seignor Gallin ; MS. in the Beriana Library, Genoa. Roughly translated it runs. . "Sweetest Mortar, dearest Mortar, I could embrace you all day and never tire. Oh wherever did that ugly lantern-jawed Botta want to have you taken?" It is impossible to reproduce exactly the exquisite meaning of " brutto abbrascao."
Spaniards, who, by the capture of Ventimiglia, secured their line of march, and obliged the Sardinians to withdraw to protect their own territories; while the Austrians, left without the support of their allies, retired into Lombardy. The English fleet which had been diligently blockading the harbour also withdrew, and the Republic entered upon a fresh period of rest, which was strengthened by the peace signed at Aixla-Chapelle in 1748.
The fast dying Republic had still one more blow to submit to, the loss of Corsica, before the final catastrophe of the Revolution ended her career.
The Corsicans had taken the opportunity afforded by the war to raise another insurrection, and Genoa was reduced once more to hiring French troops, not for the recapture of the island—that seemed hopeless —but as a garrison in those parts which had not been lost. In 1760 Corsica declared war on Genoa, so low had the Republic fallen. Seven battalions of French troops were sent to the island for four years, and when at the end of that period the French refused to allow the garrison to remain any longer, Genoa was face to face with the unwelcome choice of granting Corsica its freedom or of handing it over to France. Out of hatred Genoa chose the latter course, and on May 15th, 1768 the island was ceded to France, and ceased to be Genoese.
It remains to describe the closing scenes. Genoa, impotent as she had become through force of circumstances, was obliged to look on and tremble at the alliance made by Europe against the aggressiveness of the French. The Republic pretended a neutrality she was powerless to enforce, while war raged all around her. English and French ships frequented the harbour, and endeavoured to force the Republic into declaring for one side or the other. The English cut out a French ship under the very walls, and the Genoese threatened to fire on them, "but they had not the courage to do so, and the Signori supremi fortunately discovered that the command had been given by the Minor Consiglio, when there were not a proper number of members present; and it was accordingly withdrawn."1
France pursued more insidious methods of preparing the way, and her secret agents were busy fostering the Republican spirit within the walls. Already the Carmagnola rang through the streets, and to counteract the signs of unrest it was decreed "that all who lifted their heels higher from the ground than was required by the simple act of walking" should be arrested.
At length Genoa threw in her lot with the victorious armies of Napoleon in 1797, and nothing would satisfy the new allies but that the city should become a Democratic Republic. On many occasions the upholders of the new and old regimes came to blows, and on May 22 nd civil war broke out in earnest . Ponte Reale, Acquasole and San Tommaso with the harbour batteries were taken by the Republicans, and tricolours appeared everywhere as if by magic. Those who supported the old order of things organised a defence force, and a battle ensued between the "Vivamaria"2 supporting the government and the Republicans in Piazza de' Banchi. The Republicans were defeated, and the houses of the French robbed
1 Gaggiero, Compendio delle Storie di Genova, 1777-1797, p. 93. s So called from their war cry of " Viva Maria, viva la nostra Repubblica, morte ai Patriotti !" (Republicans).
and destroyed. Napoleon, enraged at this treatment of his fellow countrymen, commanded that the damage should be repaired and a popular government appointed, or else Faipoult, the French envoy, would return to Paris, "and your Aristocracy will no longer exist."1 The Senate was obliged to give way, and a provisional government of five patricians and four plebeians was appointed, and assumed a military dictatorship.
Then followed the Convention made at Montebello on June 5th and 6th, 1797, in which Genoa " recognised that the sovereign power rested equally in all the citizens of the Genoese territory," agreed to appoint a democratic Senate, and elected a provisional government which was to come into being on June 22nd.
The dawn of that eventful day was heralded by salutes from the forts of the city . . the National Guard paraded the streets in all its new finery, while the bands played patriotic airs. The nobles themselves mingled with the throngs of people, hoping to escape notice. . priests and friars preached the new Liberty and Democracy, pointing their arguments with unctuous extracts from the Gospels. The Tree of Liberty was solemnly planted in Piazza Acquaverde, christened for the nonce Piazza della Liberta, and all the Frenchmen in the city were sought out and kissed with enthusiasm.
Towards evening a crowd of people mardhed up to the Palazzo Ducale, and demanded the Libro d' Oro in which the names of all the nobles were inscribed, and having obtained possession of it, it was burnt amid shouts of " Viva la Liberta ! ". The excitement lasted throughout the night and far into the succeeding day, when the fury of the people was directed against the coats of arms which adorned the portals of many of 1 Gaggiero, op. cit. p. 150
the palaces. Most of them were destroyed before nightfall, and the statues of Andrea and Gianandrea D' Oria in front of the Palazzo Ducale, re-named the Palazzo Nazionale, were broken in pieces. To complete the inauguration of the new government the robes, decorations and throne of the Doge were taken in procession to the Piazza Acquaverde, and there burnt upon the ashes of the still smouldering Libro d' Oro.
It was in the midst of these riotous scenes that Semeria, the writer of the Storia Ecclesiastica, returned to Genoa; and his account of what he witnessed is a very vivid word-picture. "Entering the city," he says, "in the hope of obtaining a lodging, I found all the shops and houses shut, and going a little way forward to find out why all the people were singing, I was taken hold of by a soldier and pushed into a procession which he told me was going to the Piazza di Fontana Verde {sic) to plant the Tree of Liberty. Seated upon a triumphal car I saw a damsel dressed like the Goddess of War, who, they said, represented Liberty. She was surrounded by ardent democrats. A huge crowd both preceded and followed the car, consisting of men and women, rich and poor, nobles and commoners, priests and friars, in the wildest confusion; and they called out to me, 'Now we are all citizens of equal rank!' All of them were singing; and I, although I was so tired as to be scarcely able to stand, sang with the others more in grief than of my own desire ..—
"' Un dolce amor di patria Si pianti in questi lidi Ognun s' allegri e gridi Viva la Liberta! 1 Semeria, Storia Ecclcsiastica, p. 116. "A true love of the Fatherland implants itself on these shores. Let everyone rejoice and shout, Long live our Liberty! Let us raise the Tree of Liberty. . let the tyrants be humbled, and let the nobles come down from their haughty positions."
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