Republic of Genoa
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The Most Serene Republic of Genoa (Italian: Repubblica di Genova) was an independent state in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast from the 11th century to 1797, when it was invaded by armies of Revolutionary France under Napoleon. It was then succeeded by the Ligurian Republic, which existed until 1805 before being annexed by the French Empire. Although its restoration was briefly proclaimed in 1814, following the defeat of Napoleon, this was short-lived, and the Republic was ultimately annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia.
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[edit] The Genoese possessions
The Republic of Genoa had many possessions (used as trading posts) in the Mediterranean. Many were islands like Corse, Gorgona, Capraia, Cyprus, Chios and Samo, while others were territories in Crimea (Sebastopol, Cembalo, Soldaia, Tana and Caffa) and in the Black sea (Samsun). Near Constantinople the city of Galata and Pera and in the coast of Tunisia the island of Tabarka completed what was called the Genoese Empire.[1]
[edit] Founding
The Republic initially came into existence in the early 11th century, when Genoa became a self-governing commune within the old Regnum Italicum. In its early centuries, Genoa was an important trading city, like Venice. Genoa started her expansion during the Crusades: the Republic granted her fleet for the transportations and gained many settlements on the Middle East and favored commercial treaties. During 13th century the Republic of Genoa was allied with the Byzantine Empire of Nicaea, which received Genoese help to regain Constantinople in 1261. The alliance permitted a great commercial expansion on the Empire and also the conquest of many isles and settlements on the Aegean Sea (the most important was the isle of Chios which was lost only in 1566). In the same century the Republic conquered important trading interests throughout the Black Sea, where Genoa controlled many settlements on Crimea. In the west Mediterranean the principal rival to Genoa was Pisa, which was ultimately defeated in the naval Battle of Meloria (1284), gaining the island of Corsica from it in the late 13th century and later the control of the north-west of Sardinia (Giudicato of Logudoro), where Genoese families gained territories. In the contest between the Angevins and the Aragonese for control of Sicily after the Sicilian Vespers of 1283, Genoese merchants luckily chose to support Aragon, the winning side, and moved into the Sicilian economy with energy, lending money to the ruling class, organizing and controlling the production of sugar and silks and monopolizing the export of Sicilian grain, on which Genoa depended, situated by nature with no grain-growing contado to support its population, but which the Maghreb also required. In exchange, Genoa received African gold (Braudel 1984).
[edit] Decline
As a result of the economic retrenchment Europe in the late 14th century, as well as its long war with Venice, which culminated in its defeat at Chioggia (1380), Genoa went into a decline. The rising Ottoman power cut into the Genoese emporia in the Aegean, and the Black Sea trade was squeezed off[2].
Genoa was ultimately occupied by the French or the Milanese for much of the period. From 1499 to 1528, the Republic reached its nadir, being under nearly continual French occupation. The Spanish, with their intramural allies, the "old nobility" entrenched in the mountain fastnesses behind Genoa, captured the city on May 30, 1522 and subjected the city to a merciless pillage. When the great admiral Andrea Doria allied with the Emperor Charles V to oust the French and restore Genoa's independence, a renewed prospect opened: 1528 marks the first loan from Genoese banks to Charles (Braudel 1984).
[edit] Revival
Thereafter, Genoa underwent something of a revival as a junior associate of the Spanish Empire, with Genoese bankers, in particular, financing many of the Spanish crown's foreign endeavors from their counting houses in Seville. Fernand Braudel has even called the period 1557 to 1627 the "age of the Genoese", "of a rule that was so discreet and sophisticated that historians for a long time failed to notice it" (Braudel 1984 p. 157), though the modern visitor passing brilliant Mannerist and Baroque palazzo facades along Genoa's Strada Nova or via Balbi cannot fail to notice that there was conspicuous wealth, which in fact was not Genoese but concentrated in the hands of a tightly-knit circle of banker-financiers, true "venture capitalists".
The opening for the Genoese banking consortium was the state bankruptcy of Philip II in 1557, which threw the German banking houses into chaos and ended the reign of the Fuggers as Spanish financiers. The Genoese bankers provided the unwieldy Habsburg system with fluid credit and a dependably regular income. In return the less dependable shipments of American silver were rapidly transferred from Seville to Genoa, to provide capital for further ventures. The Genoese banker Ambrogio Spinola, marqués de los Balbases, for instance, himself raised and led an army that fought in the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands in the early 17th century. The decline of Spain in the 17th century brought also the renewed decline of Genoa, and the Spanish crown's frequent bankruptcies, in particular, ruined many of Genoa's merchant houses.
[edit] The end
Genoa continued its slow decline in the 18th century, and in 1768 was forced by endemic rebellion to sell Corsica to the French; however Genoa was considerably more prosperous than contemporary Venice, and remained a major trade center.
In 1742 the last possession of the Genoese in the Mediterranean, the island fortress of Tabarka was lost to the Bey of Tunis[3]. In 1797 the Republic was occupied by the French revolutionary army of Napoleon Bonaparte, who overthrew the old elites who had ruled the city for all of its history, and replaced them with a popular republic known as the Ligurian Republic.
After Bonaparte's seizure of power in France, a more conservative constitution was enacted, but the Ligurian Republic's life was short - in 1805 it was annexed by France, becoming the départements of Apennins, Gênes, and Montenotte. Following the defeat of Napoleon in the spring of 1814, local elites, encouraged by the British agent Lord William Bentinck proclaimed the restoration of the old Republic, but it was decided at the Congress of Vienna that Genoa should be given to the Kingdom of Sardinia. British troops suppressed the republic in December of 1814, and it was annexed by Sardinia on January 3, 1815.
[edit] See also
- Genoa
- Doge of Genoa
- Republic of Venice
- Republic of Pisa
- Mariner Republics
- Most Serene Republic
- Italian city-states
[edit] Notes
- ^ Durant, Will. The Renaissance. pag.176
- ^ Durant, Will. The Renaissance. pag.189
- ^ Alberti Russell, Janice. The Italian community in Tunisia, 1861-1961: a viable minority. pag. 142
[edit] References
- Braudel, Fernand (1984). "The Perspective of the World", Civilization and Capitalism, 157-174.
[edit] Bibliography
- Durant, Will. The Renaissance". MJK Books. New York, 1953 ISBN 1-56731-016-8
- Braudel, Ferdinand. Civilization and Capitalism. London, 1984
- Russell Alberti, Janice. The Italian community in Tunisia, 1861-1961: a viable minority. Columbia University. Columbia, 1977
