Genoa

GENOA (anc. Genoa, Ital. Genova, Fr. Genes), the chief port of Liguria, Italy, and capital of the province of Genoa, 119 m. N.W. of Leghorn by rail. Pop. 346,637 (town) ; 608,096 (commune). The town is situated on the Gulf of Genoa, and is the chief port of Italy, the seat of an archbishop and a university and a strong fortress. The city, as seen from the sea, is "built nobly," and deserves the title of the Superb. Finding only a small space of level ground along the shore, it has been obliged to climb the lower hills of the Ligurian Alps, which afford many a coign of vantage for the effective display of its architectural magnificence. The original nucleus of the city is that portion which lies to the east of the port in the neighbourhood of the old pier (Moto Vecchio). In the middle of the 12th century, it was found neces sary to extend the line of circumvallation : but it was not till 132o-3o that a third line took in the greater part of the modern site of the city proper. This presented about 3 m. of rampart towards the land side, and can still be traced, though large por tions, especially towards the east, have been dismantled. The present line of circumvallation dates from 1626-32, the period when the independence of Genoa was threatened by the dukes of Savoy. From the mouth of the Bisagno in the east, and from th lighthouse point in the west, it stretches inland over hill and dal to the great fort of Sperone (the Spur), on the summits of Mont Peraldo at a height of 1,65o ft.,—the circuit being little less that 12 m., and all the important points along the line being def ender by forts or batteries. A portion of the enclosed area is opei country, dotted only here and there with houses and gardens There are eight gates, the more important being Porta Pila am Porta Romana towards the east, and the Porta Lanterna o Lighthouse gate to the west.

Architectural Features.

The main architectural features o Genoa are its mediaeval churches, with striped facades of blac] and white marble, and its magnificent 16th-century palaces. Thy earlier churches of Genoa show a mixture of French Romanesque and the Pisan style—they are mostly basilicas with transepts, am as a rule a small dome ; the pillars are sometimes ancient columns and sometimes formed of alternate layers of black and whit marble. The facades are simple, without galleries, having onl: pilasters projecting from the wall, and are also alternately blacl and white. This style continued in Gothic times also. The oldes is S. Maria di Castello (I 1th century), the columns and capital: of which are almost all antique. S. Cosma, S. Donato (with re mains of the 1oth-century building) and others belong to th( 12th century, and S. Giovanni di Pre, S. Agostino (with a fin( campanile), S. Stefano, etc., to the 13th. S. Matteo, the churci of the Doria family, was founded in 1126 by Martino Doria. Th( facade dates from 1278, and the interior from 1543. In th( crypt is the tomb of Andrea Doria by Montorsoli, and above th( high altar hangs the dagger presented to the doge by Pope Pau III. To the left of the church is an exquisite cloister of with double columns, in which a number of sepulchral inscrip tions of the family and the statue of Andrea Doria by Montor soli are preserved. The little square in front of the church is surrounded by Gothic palaces of the Doria family. The cathedra of S. Lorenzo was reconstructed about the end of the 11th century and consecrated in 111 8. The façade has three elaborate door. ways (13th century). The interior was rebuilt in 1307. Thf campanile, which rises above the right-hand doorway, was corn. pleted in 1522, and the cupola was erected after the designs of the architect Galeazzo Alessi in 1567. The. fine Early Renaissancf (1448) sculptural decorations of the chapel of S. John the Baptist were due to Domenico Gagini of Bissone on the Lake of Lugano In the treasury of the cathedral is an octagonal bowl, the Sacrc Catino, brought from Caesarea in II°I, which corresponds to the descriptions given of the Holy Grail, and was long regarded as ar emerald of matchless value, but is in reality only a remarkablE piece of ancient glass.

The church of S. Ambrose, rebuilt by the Jesuits (1587), has a richly decorated interior (16th century). The Annunziata de] Guastato (1587), one of the largest churches in the city, is a cruciform structure, with a dome. The interior is covered with gilding and frescoes of the 17th century. San Siro was rebuilt by the Benedictines in the th century, and restored and enlarged by the Theatines in 1576, the façade being added in 183o. Santa Maria di Carignano, belongs mainly to the 16th century, and was designed by Galeazzo Alessi in imitation of S. Peter's at Rome. The interior is fine, while the colouring of the exterior is less pleasing. The highest gallery of the dome is 368 ft. above the sea level, and 194 ft. above the ground.

The palaces of the Genoese patricians, famous for their sump tuous architecture, their general effectiveness, and their artistic collections, were many of them built in the latter part of the 16th century by Galeazzo Alessi, a pupil of Michelangelo, whose style is imposing and displays marvellous ingenuity in using a limited or unfavourable site to the greatest advantage. Several of the villas in the vicinity of the city are also his work. The Via Gari baldi is flanked by a succession of magnificent palaces, chief among which is the Palazzo Rosso. It was presented by the duchess of Galliera to the city (1874), along with its valuable contents, its library and picture gallery, which includes fine ex amples of Van Dyck and Paris Bordone. The Palazzo Municipale, built by Rocco Lurago at the end of the 16th century, once the Property of the dukes of Turin, has a beautiful entrance court and a hanging terraced garden fronting a noble staircase of marble which leads to the spacious council chamber. In an adjoining room are preserved two autograph letters of Columbus, and the violin of Paganini (q.v.). Opposite the Palazzo Rosso is the Palazzo Bianco, bequeathed to the city by the duchess of Galliera (1889) and subsequently converted into a museum. In the Via Balbi is the Durazzo Pallavicini palace with a noble façade and staircase and a rich picture-gallery; also the Palazzo Balbi Senarega, which has Doric colonnades and a fine orangery. The Palazzo dell' University has an extremely fine court and staircase of the early I7th century. The Palazzo Doria in the Piazza Prin cipe, presented to Andrea Doria by the Genoese in 1522, was remodelled in 15 29 by Montorsoli and decorated with fine frescoes by Perino del Vaga. Its garden was destroyed by the building of the railway. The old palace of the doges, originally a building of the 13th century, to which the tower alone belongs, stands near the cathedral. Another very fine building is the Gothic Palazzo di S. Giorgio, near the harbour, dating from about 1260, occupied from 1408 to 1797 by the Banca di S. Giorgio, now completely re stored and occupied by the offices of the Port Authority. The Cimitero di Staglieno, about 12 m. from the city on the banks of the Bisagno, is one of the chief features of Genoa; its situation is of great natural beauty and it is remarkable for its modern sepulchral monuments. The university, founded in 1471, has 1,409 students, with faculties in law, medicine, natural science, engineering and philosophy. The naval engineering school has 261 students, and the institute of economics and commerce 587. Genoa is also well supplied with other institutions for higher edu cation. The hospitals and the asylum for the poor are among the finest institutions of their kind in Italy. Mention must also be made of the Academy of Fine Arts, the municipal library, the Teatro Carlo Felice and the Verdi Institute of Music.

The irregular relief of its site and its long confinement within the fortifications have made Genoa a picturesque confusion of narrow streets, lanes and alleys, varied with stairways climbing the steeper slopes and bridges spanning the deeper valleys. Large portions of the town are inaccessible to carriages, and many of the important streets have very little room for traffic. In modern times, however, a number of fine streets and squares with beauti ful gardens have been laid out. The Piazza Deferrari, a large irregular space, is the chief focus of traffic and the centre of the Genoese tramway system ; and imposing new buildings have been erected in and round it. The Via Venti Settembre leads south east to the Ponte Pila, the central bridge over the Bisagno, and to a growing residential quarter beyond it, with a new sea front, the Corso d'Italia, connecting with the previously existing coast road. The Via Roma, which gives on to the Via Carlo Felice near the Piazza Deferrari, leads to the Piazza Corvetto, with the eques trian statue of Victor Emmanuel II. To the left is the Villetta Dinegro, a beautiful park belonging to the city. To the right is another park, the Acquasola, laid out in 1837 on the site of the old ramparts. In front of the principal station is the Piazza Acquaverde, with a statue of Columbus, at whose feet kneels the figure of America. The Via di Circonvallazione a Monte leads up to the hills at the back of the town, where new suburbs have been constructed. San Pier d'Arena on the west has now become a part of Genoa. Genoa is well served with electric tramways, which run into the suburbs on the east as far as Nervi and to Pegli on the west. Three funicular railways from different points of the city give access to the highest parts of the hills behind the town.

Commerce and Industry.

Though its existence as a mari time power was originally due to its port, it is only since 1870 that Genoa has provided the conveniences necessary for the modern development of its trade, the duke of Galliera's gift of f 800,000 to the city in 1875 being devoted to this purpose. A further enlargement of the harbour was necessitated upon the opening of the St. Gotthard tunnel in 1882, which extended the commercial range of the port through Switzerland into Germany. The old harbour is semi-circular in shape, 232 ac. in area, with numerous quays, and protected by moles from southern and south-westerly winds. An outer harbour, 247 ac. in area, has been constructed in front of this by extending the Molo Nuovo by the Molo Duca di Galliera, and another basin, the Vittorio Emanuele III., for coal vessels, with an area of 96 ac., has been formed to the west of this, between it and the lofty lighthouse which rises on the promontory at the south-west extremity of the harbour, while a further extension in front of San Pier d'Arena as far as the mouth of the river Polcevera is in progress. The largest ships can enter the harbour, which has a minimum depth of 3o ft.; it has two dry docks, a graving dock and a floating dry dock. Very large warehouses have been constructed. The exports are olive oil, hemp, flax, rice, fruit, wine, hats, cheese, steel, velvets, gloves, flour, paper, soap and marble, while the main imports are coal, cotton, grain, machinery, etc. Genoa has a large emigrant traffic with South America, and a large general passenger steamer traffic both for America and for the East (161,922 in 1926).

The development of industry has kept pace with that of the harbour. The Ansaldo shipbuilding yards construct armoured cruisers both for the Italian navy and for foreign Governments. The Odero yards, for the construction of merchant and passenger steamers, have been similarly extended, and the Foce yard is also important. A number of foundries and metallurgical works supply material for repairs and shipbuilding. Tanneries and cot ton-spinning and weaving mills have considerably extended throughout the province. Cement works have acquired consider able importance. The manufactures of motor cars, hats, crystal lized fruits and of filigree silver-work may also be mentioned. The total trade of the port increased from well under 1,000,000 tons in 1876 to 7,5$1,359 metric tons in 1926. Of this large total 6,192, 225 tons are imports and only 1,389,134 tons are exports, and as the railway returns show that in the financial year 1925-26, tons were loaded on to trucks, the vast majority of the former amount was conveyed by rail.

The four main lines which centre on Genoa—(1) to Novi, which is the junction for Alessandnia, where lines diverge to Turin and France via the Mont Cenis, and to Novara and Swit zerland and France via the Simplon, and for Milan; (2) to Acqui and Piedmont ; (3) to Savona, Ventimiglia and the French Riviera, along the coast ; (4) to Spezia and Pisa—all have been electrified, and the first has two alternative double lines for the passage over the Apennines, as far as Arquata Scrivia. There is a marshalling station, connected directly with the harbour by tunnels, at Campasso north of San Pier d'Arena. Genoa is the most important harbour in the western Mediterranean, with the exception of Marseilles, with which it carries on a keen rivalry. The total of shipping entered in 1926 was 5,069 vessels with a tonnage of 8,645,246, while that cleared was 5,092 vessels with a tonnage of 8,662,119.

The discovery of a Greek cemetery of the 4th century B.C. is the only proof that Genoa was ever occupied by the Greeks. It was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 209 B.C. but restored by the Romans, who made it and Placentia their headquarters against the Ligurians. An inscription of 117 B.C. (now preserved in the Palazzo Municipale at Genoa) gives the text of the decision given by the patroni, Q. and M. Minucius of Genua, in a controversy between the people of Genua and the Langenses or Langates, the inhabitants of a neighbouring hill-town. It is only from inscrip tions of other places that we know that Genoa had municipal rights, and we do not know at what period it obtained them. Strabo (iv. 6. 2, p. 202) states that Genoa exported wood, skins, and honey, and imported olive oil and wine, though Pliny speaks of the wine of the district as the best of Liguria (Hist. Nat. xiv. 67).

The history of Genoa during the dark ages, throughout the Lombard and Carolingian periods, is but the repetition of the general history of the Italian communes. The patriotic spirit and naval prowess of the Genoese, developed in their defensive wars against the Saracens, led to the foundation of a popular consti tution and to the rapid growth of a powerful marine. From the necessity of leaguing together against the common Saracen foe, Genoa united with Pisa early in the i 1 th century in expelling the Muslims from the island of Sardinia; but the Sardinian territory thus acquired soon furnished occasions of jealousy to the conquer ing allies, and there commenced between the two republics the long naval wars which terminated fatally for Pisa in the battle of Meloria (1284). Genoa secured great advantages from the trade stimulated by the crusades. The seaports wrested at the same period from the Saracens along the Spanish and Barbary coasts became important Genoese colonies, whilst in the Levant, on the shores of the Black Sea, and along the banks of the Euphrates were erected Genoese fortresses of great strength.

The commercial and naval successes of the Genoese during the middle ages were the more remarkable because, unlike their rivals, the Venetians, they were the unceasing prey to intestine discord— the Genoese commons and nobles fighting against each other, rival factions amongst the nobles themselves striving to grasp the supreme power in the state, nobles and commons alike invoking the arbitration and rule of some foreign captain as the sole means of obtaining a temporary truce. From these contests of rival nobles, in which the names of Spinola and Doria stand forth with greatest prominence, Genoa was soon drawn into the great vortex of the Guelph and Ghibelline factions ; but its recognition of foreign authority—successively German, Neapolitan, and Mil anese—gave way to greater independence in 1339, when the gov ernment assumed a more permanent form with the appointment of the first doge, an office held at Genoa for life, in the person of Simone Boccanera. Alternate victories and defeats of the Vene tians and Genoese—the most terrible being the defeat sustained by the Venetians at Chioggia in 138o—ended by establishing the great relative inferiority of the Genoese rulers, who fell under the power now of France, now of the Visconti of Milan. The Banca di S. Giorgio, with its large possessions, mainly in Corsica, formed during this period the most stable element in the state, until in 1528 the national spirit appeared to regain its ancient vigour when Andrea Doria succeeded in throwing off the French domination and restoring the old form of government. The government as restored by him, with certain modifications tending to impart to it a more conservative character, remained unchanged until the outbreak of the French Revolution and the creation of the Ligu rian republic.

The Ligurian republic was soon swallowed up in the French empire, but not before Genoa had experienced terrible privations in the siege when Massena held the city against the Austrians ( r Soo) . In 1814 Genoa rose against the French, on the assurance given by Lord William Bentinck that the allies would restore to the republic its independence. It had, however, been determined by a secret clause of the treaty of Paris that Genoa should be incorporated with the dominions of the king of Sardinia. The discontent so created kept alive in Genoa the republican spirit which, through the influence of a young Genoese citizen, Joseph Mazzini, was a permanent menace not only to the Sardinian monarchy but to all the established governments of the peninsula. A republican outbreak occurred in 1848, but after a short and sharp struggle the city, momentarily seized by the republican party, was recovered by General Alf onto La Marmora.

In April–May 1922 an important Conference of the Powers, attended also by representatives from the British Dominions was held at Genoa. (See GENOA, CONFERENCE OF.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Among the earlier Genoese historians the most Bibliography.-Among the earlier Genoese historians the most important are Bartolommeo Fazio and Jacopo Bracelli, both of the 15th century, and Paolo Partenopeo, Jacopo Bonfadio, Oberto Fogli etta, and Agostino Giustiniano of the 16th. Paganetti wrote the ecclesiastical history of the city ; and Accinelli and Gaggero collected material for the ecclesiastical archaeology. The memoirs of local writers and artists were treated by Soprani and Ratti. See also Brequigny, Histoire des revolutions de Genes jusqu'en 1748; Serra, La Storia dell' antica Liguria e di Genova (1834) ; Nuova istoria della repubblica di Genova (1858), and Storia della rep. di Genova dall' anno 1528 al 1550 (Genoa, 1874) ; Blumenthal, Zur Verfassungs- and Verwaltungsgeschichte Genua's im eaten Jahrhundert (Kalbe an der Saale, 1872) ; Malleson, Studies from Genoese History (1875) ; L. Isnardi and E. Celesia, Storia della University di Genova (Genoa, 1861-67) ; The Liber jurium reipublicae Genuensis was edited by Ricotti in the 7th, 8th, and oth volumes of the Monumenta historiae patriae (1854-57). See further Atti della Society Ligure di storia patria (186I seq.) ; Giornale Ligustico di archeologia, storia, a belle arti.