Co-existant with these suicidal wars, the civil dissensions of Genoa exhausted and and demoralized the state, and occasioned an infinity of changes in the primitive form of government. In 1190, the consuls were superseded by a magistracy termed pocicsta, an office for which natives of Genoa were declared ineligible. This institution, which was founded in the hope of restraining local Genoese animosities and ambitions, lasted till 1270, when two of the great Guelph leaders of the state resolved to subvert the popu lar authorities, and, under the title of "captains of liberty," assumed irresponsible authority, which, for 21 years, they contrived to retain. During their sway, civil feuds raged inveterately, not alone between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, but also between the citizen ranks of patricians and plebeians. Various other modifications of the government preceded the election of the first Genoese doge in 1339. This supreme magisterial office, from which all nobles were excluded, continued in force for two cen turies, its tenure being for life.
The ambitious contentions of four leading democratical families—viz., the Adorni, the Fregosi, the Guarci, and the Montaldi—succeeded those of the patrician houses of Doria, Spinola, Grimaldi, and Fiesehi, and engendered such disastrous civil strife in the state under the early doges, that, in 1396, the citizens, in despair, invoked the protection of the French king, Charles VI., and finally submitted to the rule of the visconte. the
tyrranical and ambitious lords of Milan (1464). After the invasion of Louis XII. in 1499, Genoa long remained subject to the French; but in 1528, the genius and resolution of a great citizen, Andrea Doria, freed his country from foreign invaders, and restored to Genoa her republican institutions. The last important exploit of the Genoese was the expulsion, in 1746, of the Austrians, who were driven from Genoa after an occupation of three months. In 1768, Genoa ceded to France the island of Corsica; and in 1796, Bonaparte invaded Italy, and conferred on Genoa the name of the Ligurian Republic, which, in__1802, was abolished, and Genoa la Superba became the chief town of a depart ment of France. In 1815, by a decree of the congress of Vienna, the state of Genoa became a province of Piedmont. Following the fortunes of that state, it has latterly become a portion of the kingdom of Italy, and with the enterprise of its people there are marked indications of improvement. Canale's Xuoca Storia della Republica di Geiwca; Dinena's Risoluzioni d'Italia; Sismondi's Italian Republics.