The mythical port of Genoa |
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Collection title
Mythical ports of the Mediterranean
First broadcast date
2009
Abstract
The Italian port of Genoa, capital of Liguria is he second port of the Mediterranean Sea after Marseille.
Nicknamed "La Superba", Genoa became the most powerful of the Italian maritime republics. Its vessels and its doges were the masters of the Mediterranean Sea in the14th and 17th century.
Production companies
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RAI - Coproduction
- COPEAM - Coproduction
Primary theme
Main harbours
Credits / Cast
- Dotto Emmanuele - Journalist
Map locations
- Italy - Western North - Genoa
Context
The mythic port of Genoa
Gilbert Buti
Backed up against the slopes of the Apennines and "thrown at the sea" (Jacques Heers), the "town of the Griffin" has a destiny closely linked to the Mediterranean economy.
Occupied since the 5th century BC, there are few traces of the Roman presence in the town which was off the main trading routes of Empire. Indeed right up to the early Middle Ages Genoa was little more than a community of fishermen. All the same this coast strip passed into the hands of the Goths (beginning of the 6th century), the Byzantines (537) the Lombards (around 640) and the Francs (774). It only became an independant town in the middle of the 10th century (958), led by its bishops and ruling aristocratic families. Then it began a series of campaigns against the Sarrasins in the Tyrrhenian Sea (1016), in North Africa (1087) and Spain (1092). The profits made on the expeditions helped the town's commercial rise and the development of a fleet made available for the Christians during the Crusades. In exchange for help given to the French in the Holy Land (Syria-Palestine), the town was allowed to turn itself into a recognised trading post with customs privileges. Genoese merchants sailed around the eastern half of the Mediterranean and, in the 12th century, controlled the maritime and land routes linking the Levant with the fairs in Champagne. But this expansion clashed with the ambitions first of Pisa (conquered in 1284) and even more Venice. The flip-side of this growth, squabbles between merchant families tore the life of the merchant republic, until power slipped from the hands of consuls into those of the Doges (1339-1528).
Nevertheless, that scarcely dented business. The port, within a deep-water gulf, developed in a space protected by the rampart walls of the city and by the construction of a Mole equipped with a lighthouse. In the 15th century stone pontoons replaced the earlier wooden ones, giving merchant ships a solid base for mooring, while a smaller pool or darsena which, from the 13th century, was only for warships, was given a small arsenal for naval construction. Warehouses and magazines ran the length of the crowded quays of a port which had a specialised administration, the "Fathers of the Commune".
During the 14th century Genoa dragged itself up to become a leader of "an economy world" (F.Braudel); its businessmen and ships plied across the Mediterranean – and the Black Sea – going to Seville and Lisbonne, even up to Bruges, Anvers and London, bringing Mediterranean goods to a vast market and handling precious metals. At the port's heart, the Palace of St George (built after 1260) contains the Banco di San Giorgio, symbol of this financial power.
Genoese bankers and ship-owners were also intrepid sailors, from the Vivaldi brothers (13th century) to Christopher Columbus and Vespucci, not forgetting the Doria, a famous Genoese family which gave many captains and admirals, including Andrea who fought at Lepanto (1571) commanding nine galleys. Although the rising Ottoman empire deprived Genoa of its bases in the eastern Mediterranean from the 16th century, and although if the discoveries on the other side of the Ocean gradually moved the centre of gravity of the European economy towards the west, the 17th century was still the "century of the Genoans" (F.Braudel). Nevertheless the rise in power of the modern states dealt a blow to the port: in 1684 the bombardment of Genoa by Louis XIV's fleet, as a reprisal for the help Genoa had given the to Spanish enemy, damaged the harbour badly; from then on commercial activity was reduced to the north-west of the Mediterranean. The conquest of Liguria by Napoleon Bonapart gave the place a renewed lease of life, but it was industrialisation and the unification of Italy in the 19th century which gave a new impetus to the town whose port became the first of a unified Italy. The military operations of the Second World War again caused major damage to the port, but it was the container revolution at the end of the 20th century which led to the abandon of the old port site – now reserved for tourists – in favour of brand new installations at Voltri. There is no doubt that Genoa is "a highly sensitive seismograph which leaps about when the vast world moves" (Fernand Braudel)
Bibliography:
Antoine-Marie Graziani, Histoire de Gênes, Paris, Fayard, 2009.
Luciano Gallinari (dir.), Genova, una « porta » del Mediterraneo, 2 volumes, Gênes, Istituto di Storia dell’Europa mediterranea, 2005.
Fernand Braudel, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, 3 volumes, Paris, A. Colin, 1979.
Jacques Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle. Activité économique et problèmes sociaux, Paris, 1961.