The gate of Italy, I said in speaking of her, and indeed it is one of
the derivations of her name Genoa,--Janua the gate, founded, as the
fourteenth-century inscription in the Duomo asserts, by Janus, a Trojan
prince skilled in astrology, who, while seeking a healthy and safe place
for his dwelling, sailed by chance into this bay, where was a little
city founded by Janus, King of Italy, a great-grandson of Noah, and
finding the place such as he wished, he gave it his name and his power.
Now, whether the great-grandson of Noah was truly the original founder
of the city, or Janus the Trojan, or another, it is certainly older than
the Christian religion, so that some have thought that Janus, that old
god who once presided at the beginning of all noble things, was the
divine originator of this city also. And remembering the sun that
continually makes Genoa to seem all of precious stone, of moonstone or
alabaster, it seems indeed likely enough, for Janus was worshipped of
old as the sun, he opened the year too, and the first month bears his
name; and while on earth he was the guardian deity of gates, in heaven
he was porter, and his sign was a ship; therefore he may well have taken
to himself the city of ships, the gateway of Italy, Genoa.
And through that gate what beautiful, terrible, and mysterious things
have passed into oblivion; Saints who have perhaps seen the very face of
Jesus; legions strong in the everlasting name of Caesar, that have lost
themselves in the fastnesses of the North; sailors mad with the song of
the sirens. On her quays burned the futile enthusiasm of the Middle Age,
that coveted the Holy City and was overwhelmed in the desert. Through
her streets surged Crusade after Crusade, companies of adventure, lonely
hermits drunken with silence, immense armies of dreamers, the chivalry
of Europe, a host of little children. On her ramparts Columbus dreamed,
and in her seas he fought with the Tunisian galleys before he set sail
westward for El Dorado. And here Andrea Doria beat the Turks and
blockaded his own city and set her free; and S. Catherine Adorni, weary
of the ways of the world, watched the galleons come out of the west, and
prayed to God, and saw the wind over the sea. O beautiful and mysterious
armies, O little children from afar, and thou whose adventurous name
married our world, what cities have you taken, what new love have you
found, what seas have your ships furrowed; whither have you fled away
when Genoa was so fair?
* * * * *
It was about the year 50 when St. Nazarus and St. Celsus, fleeing from
the terror of Nero, landed not far away to the east at Albaro, bringing
with them the new religion. A lane leading down to the sea still bears
the name of one of them, and, strangely as we may think, a ruined church
marks the spot crowning the rock above the place, where a Temple of
Venus once stood. Yet perhaps the earliest remnant of old Genoa is to be
found in the Church of S. Sisto in the Via di Prè, standing as it does
on the very stones of a church raised to the Pope and martyr of that
name in 260. In the journey which Pope Sixtus made to Genoa he is said
to have been accompanied by St. Laurence, and it is probable that a
church was built not much later to him also on the site of the Duomo.
However this may be, Genoa appears to have been passionately Christian,
for the first authority we hear of is that of the Bishops, to whom she
seems to have submitted herself enthusiastically, installing them in the
old castello in that the most ancient part of the city around Piazza
Sarzano and S. Maria di Castello. This castello, destroyed in the
quarrels of Guelph and Ghibelline, as some have thought, may be found in
the hall-mark of the silver vessels made here under the Republic. Very
few are the remnants that have come down to us from the time of the
Bishops. An inscription, however, on a house in Via S. Luca close to S.
Siro remains, telling how in the year 580 S. Siro destroyed the serpent
Basilisk. In the church itself a seventeenth-century fresco commemorates
this monstrous deed.
Of the Lombard dominion something more is left to us; the story at least
of the passing of the dust of St. Augustine. It seems that at the
beginning of the sixth century these sacred ashes had been brought from
Africa to Cagliari to save them from the Vandals. For more than two
hundred years they remained at Cagliari, when, the Saracens taking the
place, Luitprand, the Lombard king, remembering S. Ambrogio and Milan,
ransomed them for a great price and had them brought in 725 to Genoa,
where they were shown to the people for many days. Luitprand himself
came to Genoa to meet them and placed them in a silver urn, discovered
at Pavia in 1695, and carried them in state across the Apennines. Some
of the beautiful Lombard towers, such as S. Stefano and S. Agostino,
where the ashes are said to have been exposed, remind us perhaps more
nearly of the Lombard dominion. Then came Charlemagne and his knights
and the great quarrel. But though Genoa now belonged to the Holy Roman
Empire, she was not strong enough to defend herself from the raids of
the Saracens, who in the earlier part of the tenth century burnt the
city and led half the population into captivity.
Perhaps it is to Otho that Genoa owes her first impulse towards
greatness: he gave her a sort of freedom at any rate. And immediately
after his day the Genoese began to make way against the Saracens on the
seas. You may see a relic of some passing victory in the carved Turk's
head on a house at the corner of Via di Prè and Vico dei Macellai. Nor
was this all, for about this time Genoa seized Corsica, that fatal
island which not only never gave her peace, but bred the immortal
soldier who was finally to crush her and to end her life as a free
power.
There follow the Crusades. These splendid follies have much to do with
the wealth and greatness of Genoa. It was from her port that Godfrey de
Bouillon set sail in the _Pomella_ as a pilgrim in 1095. He appears to
have been insulted at the very gate of Jerusalem, or, as some say, at
the door of the Holy Sepulchre. At any rate he returned to Europe, where
Urban II, urged by Peter the Hermit, was already half inclined to
proclaim the First Crusade. Godfrey's story seems to have decided him;
and, indeed, so moving was his tale, that the crowd who heard him cried
out urging the Pope to act, _Dieu le veult_, the famous and fatal cry
that was to lead uncounted thousands to death, and almost to widow
Europe. In Genoa the war was preached furiously and with success by the
Bishops of Gratz and Arles in S. Siro. An army of enthusiasts, monks,
beggars, soldiers, adventurers, and thieves, moved partly by the love of
Christ, partly by love of gain, gathered in Genoa. With them was
Godfrey. They sailed in 1097: they besieged Antioch and took it. Content
it might seem with this success, or fearful in that stony place of
venturing too far from the sea, the Genoese returned, not empty. For on
the way back, storm-bound perhaps in Myra, they sacked a Greek
monastery there, carrying off for their city the dust of St. John
Baptist, which to-day is still in their keeping.
Was it the hope of loot that caused Genoa in 1099 to send even a larger
company to Judaea under the great Guglielmo Embriaco, whose tower to-day
is all that is left of what must once have been a city of towers? Who
knows? He landed with his Genoese at Joppa, burnt his ships as Caesar
did, though doubtless he thought not of it, and marching on Jerusalem
found the Christians still unsuccessful and the Tomb of Christ, as now,
ringed by pagan spears. But the Genoese were not to be denied. If the
valour of Europe was of no avail, the contrivance of the sea, the
cunning of Genoa must bring down Saladin. So they set to work and made a
tower of scaffolding with ropes, with timbers, with spars saved from
their ships. When this was ready, slowly, not without difficulty, surely
not without joy, they hauled and heaved and drove it over the burning
dust, the immense wilderness of stones and refuse that surrounded
Jerusalem. Then they swarmed up with songs, with shouting, and leapt on
to the walls, and over the ramparts into the Holy City, covered with
blood, filled with the fury of battle, wounded, dying, mad with hatred,
to the Tomb of Jesus, the empty sepulchre of God.
Then eight days after came that strange election, when we offered the
throne of Palestine to Godfrey of Bouillon; but he refused to wear a
crown of gold where his Saviour had worn one of thorns, so we proclaimed
him Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.
But the Genoese under Embriaco as before returned home, again not
without spoil. And their captain for his portion claimed the _Catino_,
the famous vessel, fashioned as was thought of a single emerald, truly,
as was believed, the vessel of the Holy Grail, the cup of the Last
Supper, the basin of the Precious Blood. To-day, if you are fortunate,
as you look at it in the Treasury of S. Lorenzo, they tell you it is
only green glass, and was broken by the French who carried it to Paris.
But, indeed, what crime would be too great in order to possess oneself
of such a thing? It was an emerald once, and into it the Prince of Life
had dipped His fingers; Nicodemus had held it in his trembling hands to
catch the very life of God; who knows what saint or angry angel in the
heathen days of Napoleon, foreseeing the future, snatched it away into
heaven, giving us in exchange what we deserved. Surely it was an emerald
once? Is it possible that a Genoese gave up all his spoil for a green
glass, a cracked pipkin, a heathen wash pot, empty, valueless, a
fraud?--I'll not believe it.
Embriaco, however, returned once more to Palestine with his men,
fighting under Godfrey at Cesarea; and again he came home in triumph,
his galleys low with spoil. And indeed, though we hear no more of
Embriaco, by the end of the first Crusade, Genoa had won possessions in
the East,--streets in Jaffa, streets in Jerusalem, whole quarters in
Antioch, Cesarea, Tyre, and Acre, not to speak of an inscription in the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, "Prepotens Genuensium Presidium," which
Godfrey had carved there, while the Pope gave them their cross of St.
George as arms, which, as some say, we got from them.
Strangely as we may think, in the second Crusade, and even in the third,
so disastrous for the Christian arms, Genoa bore no part; no part, that
is, in the fighting, though in the matter of commissariat and shipping
she was not slow to come forward and make a fortune. And indeed, she had
enough to do at home; for Pisa, no less slow to join the Crusades,
became her enemy, jealous of her growing power and of her possession of
Corsica, so that in 1120 war broke out between them, which scarcely
ceased till Pisa was finally beaten on the sea, and the chains of Porto
Pisano were hanging on the Palazzo di S. Giorgio.
Soon, however, Genoa was engaged in a more profitable business, an
affair after her own heart, in which valour was not its own reward,--I
mean, in the expedition in 1147 against the Moors in Spain. Certainly
the Pope, Eugenius III it was, urged them to it, but so they had been
urged to fight against Saladin without arousing enthusiasm. Yet in this
new cause all Genoa was at fever heat. Wherefore? Well, Granada was a
great and wealthy city, whereas Jerusalem was a ruined village. So they
sent thirty thousand men with sixty galleys and one hundred and sixty
transports to Almeria, which after some hard fighting, for your Moor was
never a coward, they took, with a huge booty. In the next year they took
Tortosa, and returned home laden with spoil, silver lamps for the shrine
of St. John Baptist, for instance, and women and slaves.
Still, Genoa had no peace, for we find her making a stout and successful
defence shortly after against Frederic I, the whole city, men, women,
and children, on his approach from Lombardy, building a great wall about
the city in fifty-three days, of which feat Porta S. Andrea remains the
monument. Then followed that pestilence of Guelph and Ghibelline; out of
which rose the names of the great families, robbers, oppressors,
tyrants,--Avvocato, Spinola, Doria, the Ghibellines, with the Guelphs,
Castelli, Fieschi, Grimaldi. Nor was Genoa free of them till the great
Admiral Andrea Doria crushed them for ever. Yet peace of a sort there
was, now and again, in 1189 for instance, when Saladin won back
Jerusalem, and the Guelph nobles volunteered in a body to serve against
him, leaving Genoa to the Ghibellines, who established the foreign
Podestà for the first time to rule the city. But this gave them no
peace, for still the nobles fought together, and if one family became
too powerful, confusion became worse confounded, for Guelph and
Ghibelline joined together to bring it low. Thus in the thirteenth
century you find Ghibelline Doria linked with the Guelph Grimaldi and
Fieschi to break Ghibelline Spinola. The aspect of the city at that time
was certainly very different from the city of to-day, which is mainly of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries where it is not quite modern.
Then each family had its tower, from which it fought or out of which it
issued, making the streets a shambles as it followed the enemy home or
sought him out. The ordinary citizen must have had an anxious time of
it with these bands of idle cut-throats at large. But by the close of
the twelfth century the towers, at any rate, had been destroyed by order
of the Consuls, the only one left being that which we see to-day, Torre
degli Embriachi, left as a monument to a cunning valour. The thirteenth
century saw the domination of the Spinola family, or rather of one
branch of it, the Luccoli Spinola, which as opposed to the old S. Luca
branch seems to have lived nearer the country and the woods, and was
apparently most disastrous for the internal peace of the city; and
indeed, until the Luccoli were beaten and exiled, as happened in the
beginning of the fourteenth century, there could be no peace; truly the
only peace Genoa knew in those days was that of a foreign war, when the
great lords went out against Pisa or Venice.
The Venetian war, unlike that against Pisa, ended disastrously. Its
origin was a question of trade in the East, where the Comneni had given
certain rights to Genoa which on their fall the Venetians refused to
respect. The quarrel came to a head in that cause of so many quarrels,
the island of Crete, for the Marquis of Monferrat had sold it to the
Venetians while he offered it to the Genoese, he himself having received
it as spoil in the fourth Crusade. In this quarrel with Venice, Genoa
certainly at first had the best of it. In 1261, or thereabout, she
founded two colonies at Pera and Caffa, on the Bosphorus and in the
Euxine, thus adding to her empire, which was rather a matter of business
than of dominion. This is illustrated very effectually by the history of
the Bank of St. George, which from this time till its dissolution at the
end of the eighteenth century was, as it were, the heart of Genoa. It
was Guglielmo Boccanegra, the grandfather of a more famous son, who
built the palace which, as we now see it on the quay, is so sad and
ruinous a monument to the independent greatness of the city. And since
its stones were, as it is said, brought from Constantinople, where
Michael Paleologus had given the Genoese the Venetian fortress of
Pancratone, it is really a monument of the hatred of Genoa for Venice
that we see there, the principal door being adorned with three lions'
heads, part of the spoil of that Venetian fortress. This palace, on the
death of Boccanegra, Captain of the People, was used by the city as an
office for the registration of the _compere_ or public loans, which
dated from 1147 and the Moorish expedition. From the time of the
foundation of the Bank the shares were, like our consols, to be bought
and sold and were guaranteed by the city herself, though it was not till
1407 that the loans were consolidated and the Palazzo delle Compere, as
it was called, became the Banco di S. Giorgio. Indeed, though its real
power may be doubted, it administered, in name at any rate, the colonies
of Genoa after the fall of Constantinople.
Of the building itself I speak elsewhere; it is rather to its place in
the story of Genoa that I have wished here to draw attention.
And it was now, indeed, that Genoa reached, perhaps, the zenith of her
power. For in 1284 comes the great victory of Meloria, which laid Pisa
low. Enraged partly at the success of Genoa in the East, partly at her
growing power and general wealth, Pisa, with that extraordinary flaming
and ruthless energy so characteristic of her, determined to dispose of
Genoa once and for all. Nor were the Genoese unwilling to meet her.
Indeed, they urged her to it. The two fleets, bearing some sixty
thousand men, that of Pisa commanded by a Venetian, Andrea Morosini,
that of Genoa by Oberto Doria, met at Meloria, not far from Bocca
d'Arno, when the Pisans were utterly defeated, partly owing to the
treachery of the immortal Count Ugolino, who sailed away without
striking a blow.[1] Yet in spite of her defeat Pisa carried on the war
for four years, when she sued for peace, which, however, she could not
keep, so that in 1290 we find Corrado Doria sailing into the Porto
Pisano, breaking the chain which guarded it, and carrying it back to
Genoa, where part of it hung as a trophy till our own time on the façade
of the Palazzo di S. Giorgio.
Nor were the Genoese content, for soon after this victory we find them,
led by Lamba Doria, utterly beating the Venetians at Curzola, in the
Adriatic, where they took a famous prisoner, Messer Marco Polo, just
returned from Asia. They brought him back to Genoa, where he remained in
prison for nearly two years, and wrote his masterpiece. Whether it was
the influence of so illustrious a captive, or merely the natural
expression of their own splendid and adventurous spirit, about this time
the Doria fitted out two galleys to explore the western seas, and to try
to reach India by way of the sunset. Tedisio Doria and the brothers
Vivaldi with some Franciscans set out on this adventure, and never
returned.
With the fourteenth century Genoa for a time threw off the yoke of her
great nobles, Spinola, Doria, Grimaldi, Fieschi. The wave of revolt that
passed over Europe at this time certainly left Genoa freer than she had
ever been. The people had claimed to name their own "Abbate," in
opposition to the Captain of the People. They chose by acclamation
Simone Boccanegra, who, however, seeing that he was to have no power,
refused the office. "If he will not be Abbate," cried a voice in the
crowd, "let him be Doge"; and seeing the enthusiasm of the people, this
great man allowed himself to be borne to S. Siro, where he was crowned
first Doge of Genoa for life. The nobles seem to have been afraid to
interfere, so great was the eagerness of the people. And it was about
this time that the Grimaldi, driven out of Genoa, seized Monaco, which
by the sufferance of Europe they hold to-day. It is true, that for a
time in 1344 the nobles gathered an army and returned to Genoa,
Boccanegra resigning and exiling himself in Pisa; but twelve years later
he was back again, ruling with temperance and wisdom that great city,
which was now queen of the Mediterranean sea.
To follow the fortunes of the Republic one would need to write a book.
It must be sufficient to say here that by the middle of the century war
broke out with Venice, and was at first disastrous for Genoa. Then once
more a Doria, Pagano it was, led her to victory at Sapienza, off the
coast of Greece, where thirty-one Genoese galleys fought thirty-six of
Venice and took them captive. But the nobles were never quiet, always
they plotted the death of the Doge Giovanni da Morta, or Boccanegra. It
was with the latter they were successful in 1363, when they poisoned him
at a banquet in honour of the King of Cyprus--for they had possessed
themselves of a city in that island. Thus the nobles came back into
Genoa, Adorni, Fregosi, Guarchi, Montaldi, this time; lesser men, but
not less disastrous for the liberty of Genoa than the older families. So
they fought among themselves for mastery, till the Adorni, fearing to be
beaten, sold the city to Charles VI of France, who made them his
representative and gave them the government. And all this time the war
with Venice continued. At first it promised success,--at Pola, for
instance, where Luciano Doria was victorious, but at last beaten at
Chioggia, and not knowing where to turn to make terms, the supremacy of
the seas passed from Genoa to Venice, peace coming at last in 1381.
Then the Genoese turned their attention to the affairs of their city. In
the first year of the fifteenth century they rose to throw off the
French yoke. But France was not so easily disposed of. She sent Marshal
Boucicault to rule in Genoa; and he built the Castelletto, which was
destroyed only a few years ago in our father's time. In 1409, however,
Boucicault thought to gain Milan, for Gian Galeazzo Visconti was dead.
In his absence the Genoese rose and threw out the French, preferring
their own tyrants. These, Adorni, Montaldi, Fregosi, fought together
till Tommaso Fregosi, fearing that the others might prove too strong for
him, sold the city to Filippo Maria Visconti, tyrant of Milan. So the
Visconti came to rule in Genoa.
This period, full of the confusion of the petty wars of Italy, while
Sforza was plotting for his dukedom and Malatesta was building his Rocca
in Rimini; while the Pope was a fugitive, and the kingdom of Naples in a
state of anarchy, is famous, so far as Genoa is concerned, for her
victory at sea over King Alfonso of Aragon, pretender against René of
Anjou to the throne of Naples. The Visconti sided with the House of
Anjou, and Genoa, in their power for the moment, fought with them; so
that Biagio Assereto, in command of the Genoese fleet, not only defeated
the Aragonese, but took Alfonso prisoner, together with the King of
Navarre and many nobles. That victory, strangely enough, made an end of
the rule of the Visconti in Genoa. For, seeing his policy led that way,
Filippo Maria Visconti ordered the Genoese to send their illustrious
prisoners to Milan, where he made much of them, fearing now rather the
French than the Spaniards, since the Genoese had disposed of the latter
and so made the French all-powerful. This spoliation, however, enraged
the Genoese, who joined the league of Florence and Venice, deserting
Milan. At the word of Francesco Spinola they rose, in 1436, killed the
Milanese governor outside the Church of S. Siro, and once more declared
a Republic. To little purpose, as it proved, for the feuds betwixt the
great families continued, so that by 1458 we find Pietro Fregosi,
fearing the growing power of the Adorni, and hard pressed by King
Alfonso, who never forgave an injury, handing over Genoa to Charles VIII
of France.
Meantime, in 1453, Constantinople had fallen before Mahomet, and the
colony of Galata was thus lost to Genoa. And though in this sorry
business the Genoese seem to be less blameworthy than the rest of
Christendom--for they with but four galleys defeated the whole Turkish
fleet--Genoa suffered in the loss of Galata more than the rest, a fact
certainly not lost upon Venice and Naples, who refused to move against
the Turk, though the honour of Europe was pledged in that cause. But all
Italy was in a state of confusion. Sforza, that fox who had possessed
himself of the March of Ancona, and had never fought in any cause but
his own, on the death of Visconti had with almost incredible guile
seized Milan. He it was who helped the Genoese to throw out the French,
only to take Genoa for himself. A man of splendid force and confidence,
he ruled wisely, and alone of her rulers up to this time seems to have
been regretted when, in 1466, he died, and was succeeded in the Duchy
of Milan by his son Galeazzo. This man was a tyrant, and ruled like a
barbarian, till his assassination in 1476. There followed a brief space
of liberty in Genoa, liberty endangered every moment by the quarrels of
the nobles, who at last proposed to divide the city among them, and
would have thus destroyed their fatherland, had not Il Moro, Ludovico
Sforza of Milan, intervened and possessed himself of Genoa, which he
held till 1499, when Louis XII of France defeated him, Genoa placing
herself under his protection.
Meanwhile Columbus, that mystical dreamer who might have restored to
Genoa all and more than all she had lost in colonial dominion, was born
and grew up in those narrow streets, and played on the lofty ramparts
and learned the ways of ships. Genoa in her proud confusion heard him
not, so he passed to Salamanca and the Dominicans, and set sail from
Cadiz. Yet he never forgot Genoa, and indeed it is characteristic of
those great men who are without honour in their own country, that they
are ever mindful of her who has rejected them. The beautiful letter
written to the Bank of St. George in 1498 from Seville, as he was about
to set out on what proved to be his last voyage, is witness to this.
"Although my body," he writes, "is here, my heart is always with you.
God has been more bountiful to me than to any one since David's time.
The success of my enterprise is already clear, and would be still more
clear if the Government did not cover it with a veil. I sail again for
the Indies in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, and I return at once;
but as I know I am but mortal, I charge my son Don Diego to pay you
yearly and for ever the tenth part of all my revenue, in order to
lighten the toll on wine and corn. If this tenth part is large you are
welcome to it; if small, believe in my good wish. May the Most Holy
Trinity guard your noble persons and increase the lustre of your
distinguished office."
Such were the last words of Columbus to his native city. You may see his
birthplace, the very house in which he was born, on your left in the
Borgo dei Lanajoli, as you go down from the Porta S. Andrea.
It was in 1499 that Louis of France got possession of Genoa. He held the
city, cowed as it was, till 1507, when, goaded into rebellion by
insufferable wrongs, the people rose and threw out his Frenchmen with
their own nobles, choosing as their Doge Paolo da Novi, a dyer of silk,
one of themselves. Not for long, however, was Paolo to rule in Genoa,
for Louis retook the city, and Paolo, who had fled to Pisa, was captured
as he sailed for Rome, and put to death.
It was now that it came into the mind of Louis, who had learned nothing
from experience, to build another fort like to the Castelletto, to wit
the Briglia, to bridle the city. This he did, yet there lay the bridle
on which he was to be ridden back to France. For the Genoese never
forgave him his threat, which stood before them day by day, so that at
the first opportunity, Julius II, Pope and warrior, helping them, they
rose again, and again the French departed. And in 1515 Louis died, and
Francis I ruled in his stead. Then, the nobles of Genoa quarrelling as
ever among themselves, Fregoso agreed with the French king, who made him
governor of the city. The Adorni, angry at this, made overtures to the
Emperor, Charles V it was, who sent General Pescara and twenty thousand
men to take the city. There followed that most bloody sack, to the cry
of Spain and Adorni, which lives in history and in the hearts of the
Genoese to this day. This happened in 1522, and thereafter Antoniotto
Adorni became Doge as a reward for his treachery.
But already the deliverer was at hand, scarcely to be distinguished at
first from an enemy. Five years were the length of Adorni's rule, and
all that time the French attacked and strove for the city, and in their
ranks fought he who was the deliverer, Andrea Doria, Lord Admiral of
Genoa, the saviour of his country.
Then in 1527 the French got possession of Genoa. Now Filippino Doria,
nephew to the Admiral, had won a victory in the Gulf of Palermo over
the Spanish fleet. But Francis, that brilliant fool, thought nothing of
this service, though he claimed the prisoners for himself, for he liked
the ransom well. Then the Admiral, touched in his pride, threw over the
French cause and joined the Emperor. In 1528 a common action between the
fleet under Doria and the populace within the city once more threw out
the French, and Doria entered Genoa amid the acclamation of the
multitude, knight of the Golden Fleece and Prince of Melfi.
This extraordinary and heroic sailor, born at Oneglia in 1466 or 1468 of
one of the princely houses of Genoa, before 1503 had served under many
Italian lords. It was in 1513 that he first had the command of the fleet
of Genoa, while three years later he defeated the Turks at Pianosa. He
helped Francis into Genoa and he threw him out; while he lived he ruled
the city he had twice subdued, and his glory was hers. Yet truly it
might seem that all Doria did was but to transfer Genoa from the
Spaniard to the Frenchman and back again. In reality, he won her for
himself. He drove the French not only out of Genoa, but out of her
dominion. He filled up the port of Savona with stones, because she had
under French influence sought to rival Genoa. With him Genoa ruled the
sea, and with his death her greatness departed. And he was as liberal as
he was powerful. Charles V knew him, and let him alone. He himself as
Lord of Genoa gave her back her liberties, set up the Senate again,
opened the Golden Book, Il Libro d'Oro, and wrote in it the names of
those who should rule; then he set up a parliament, the Grand Council of
Four Hundred, and the old quarrels were forgotten, and there was peace.
But who could rule the Genoese, greedy as their sea, treacherous as
their winds, proud as their sun, deep as their sky, cruel as their
rocks! If the Admiral had brought the Adorni and the Fregosi low, there
yet remained the Fieschi, old as the Doria, Guelph too, while they had
been Ghibelline.
It is true that the old quarrels were done with, yet strangely enough it
was on the Pope's behalf that the Fieschi plotted against the Doria.
Now, Pope Paul III had been Doria's friend. In 1535 he had for a
remembrance of his love given the Admiral that great sword which still
hangs in S. Matteo. But now, when Andrea's brother, Abbate di San
Fruttuoso came to die, and it was known that he had left the Admiral
much property close to Naples, the Pope, swearing that the estates of an
ecclesiastic necessarily returned to the Church, claimed Andrea's
inheritance. But the Admiral thought differently. Ordering Giannettino,
his nephew, to take the fleet to Civitavecchia, he seized the Pope's
galleys and had them brought to Genoa. Now, when the Genoese saw this
strange capture convoyed into Genoa--so the tale goes--they were afraid,
and crowded round the old Admiral, demanding wherefore he made war on
the Church, and some shouted sacrilege and others profanation, while
others again besought him with tears what it meant. And he answered, so
that all might hear, that it meant that his galleys were stronger than
those of His Holiness.
Then the Pope, knowing his man, gave way, but forgot it not. So that he
called Gian Luigi Fieschi to him, the head of that family, a Guelph of a
Guelph stock, and put it into his mind to rise against the Admiral, and
to hold Genoa himself under the protection of Francis I. The blow fell
on 1st January 1547. Now, on the day before, the Admiral was unwell and
lay a bed, so that Fieschi waited on him in the most friendly way, and,
as it is said, kissed many times the two lads, grand-nephews of the
Admiral, who played about the room. Not many hours later, the Fieschi
were in the streets rousing the city. Giannettino, nephew to the
Admiral, hearing the tumult, ran to the Porta S. Tommaso to hold it and
enter the city, but that gate was already lost, and he himself soon
dead. Truly, all seemed lost when Fieschi, going to seize the galleys,
slipped from a plank into the water, and his armour drowned him. Then
the House of Doria rallied, and their cry rang through the city; little
by little they thrust back their enemies, they hemmed them in, they
trod them under foot; before dawn all that were left of the Fieschi were
flying to Montobbio, their castle in the mountains. Thus the Admiral
gave peace to Genoa, nor was he content with the exile or death of his
foes, for he destroyed also all their palaces, villas, and castles,
spoiling thus half the city, and making way for the palaces which have
named Genoa the City of Palaces, and which we know to-day. For thirteen
years longer Andrea Doria reigned in Genoa, dying at last in 1560. And
at his death all that might make Genoa so proud departed with him. In
1565 she lost Chios, the last of her possessions in the East, and before
long she lay once more in the hands of foreigners, not to regain her
liberty till in 1860 Italy rose up out of chaos and her sea bore the
Thousand of Garibaldi to Sicily, to Marsala, to free the Kingdom.