History History

The human presence in Liguria in ancient times is attested by numerous remains and menhirs with a human physiognomy. A tribe of unknown origins settled in the north of present-day Italy in the second millennium B.C.: they were the Ligurians, who would later give their name to this essentially coastal region. They laid the foundations of the future Genoa and especially of its port.

During the Punic Wars (3rd and 2nd centuries BC), Genoa came into the orbit of Rome: the port of Genoa became a naval port of call of capital importance for the Roman fleet on its way against the Carthaginian ships. After its final victory over Carthage, Rome used Genoa in its expansionist policy towards the north. Between 190 and 150 BC, the Romans occupied the whole of the Ligurian lands through several military campaigns. Genoa was romanized with the enlargement of its territory towards the actual area of Porto Antico and with the construction of streets, the Latin quadrigi, ancestors of the caruggi, which today make the whole character of the old city center. The construction of several large roads allowed Genoa to be connected to the rest of Italy (Via Postumia in 148 BC and Via Aemilia Scauri in 107 BC).

At the fall of the Roman Empire, the city was devastated by the Goths from northern Europe. In 553, the Byzantines occupied the entire coast up to the Apennines, creating the Byzantine province of Liguria, then the Lombards, in 641, took Genoa which became the capital of the Ligurian duchy, within the Lombard kingdom. In 774, Charlemagne integrated Genoa and its territory into the Carolingian Empire. This was a particularly prosperous period for the region with the development of numerous agricultural techniques such as the cultivation of olive trees in terraces, and above all the opening of a trade route to the Po valley. At the time of the division of the Empire between the sons of Charlemagne, Liguria was divided into three zones (Aleramica, Arduinica and Obertanga) which were governed by a feudal system. Faced with the frequent incursions of Saracen pirates in the 10th and 11th centuries, the coast was covered with defensive towers and bastions, some of which are still visible today.

In the eleventh century, Genoa asserted itself as a great commercial power in the Mediterranean, and first of all thanks to its participation in the first crusade in 1097. Indeed, three victorious expeditions to the Holy Land gave the city the possessions of Jaffa, Gibelet, Caesarea of Antioch and St. John of Acre. In addition, its role was fundamental in the "Spanish Crusade" (1147). In exchange for the cities liberated from the Muslims, Spain assured the Genoese of colonies and free ports in the Iberian Peninsula, confirming the political and economic agreement between the two powers that would develop over the following centuries. At the same time, the various professional corporations of the city saw the need to found a stable political institution. Thus the Compagna Communis, created in 1099, was a kind of federation of citizens that quickly took on the aspect of a real commune, an essential administrative, legal and economic instrument in the relations between an increasingly powerful aristocracy, the clergy and the merchant class.

Emperor Frederick Barbarossa negotiated with Genoa for its independence in exchange for renouncing an alliance with the Norman kingdom of Sicily. In 1139, the city had already obtained permission to mint its own currency, on condition that the imperial effigy continued to appear on it. The city grew richer and richer and was nicknamed "La Superbe". Defending the Byzantine Empire in 1261 against the crusaders of the fourth crusade, it saw the doors of the Black Sea open up, as far as the most extreme eastern borders, touching Iran and Iraq. Genoese colonies in the East flourished on all sides: Cyprus, the Galata district in Constantinople, Sevastopol, Crete, Rhodes, Smyrna... Genoa reigned in the Mediterranean basin. With the wealth that flowed in from the Middle East, the city was embellished with rich palaces and numerous churches

However, the internal political situation remained unstable, due to incessant power struggles between aristocratic families and the growing desire of the merchant classes to take part in civic government. In an attempt to put an end to this infighting, the consular government of the Compagna Communis was replaced by a podestà from outside the city, a kind of impartial mayor who could overcome the rivalries between different factions. But the system was a failure and civil unrest continued. In 1257, the podestà was succeeded by the figure of the people's captain, the first of whom was the merchant Guglielmo Boccanegra. However the internal fights did not stop, even after glorious naval victories. Here also, too important financial interests forced the government to abandon again the political figures previously adopted. A new office, the dogate, was established, taking the example of Venice. The first doge was Simone Boccanegra in 1339 (nephew of Guglielmo). Assassinated, he paid with his life for his attempt to exclude the nobles from power. The life term of the doge was therefore changed to a two-year term. This last political formula was to last within the Republic, almost without interruption, for three centuries.

At the same time, at the end of the Middle Ages, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, several Ligurians were the actors of important geographical discoveries. Thus Lanzarotto Malocello discovered the Canary Islands in 1312, Antonio da Noli the Cape Verde Islands (1460-1462) and, in the 1440s, Antonio Malafante was the first to cross the Sahara. The most famous of all these explorers is of course Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) who set foot in America in 1492.

But the appetite for expansion of its neighbors, mainly the French and the Milanese at that time, weakened the city, already weakened by internal struggles. However, it was during the French occupation, in 1407, that the city created the first modern credit institute in the world, the Banco San Giorgio. This banking institution became a state within a state, or rather the only truly authoritarian institution in the region. But with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, the Genoese lost much of their advantage in the Black Sea and the Middle East and the economic decline continued.

In the 16th century, King Francis I and Emperor Charles V were fighting for the domination of Europe. The city of Genoa was alternately occupied by one army or the other. Andrea Doria, a great political strategist and talented admiral, a mercenary who had already acted in the past for the interests of the pope but also of Francis I, saw in the emperor's offer to fight under his arms the possibility for Genoa to regain its independence and its former splendor. In exchange for the definitive insertion of the city into the Spanish political and economic system, Charles V officially recognized the autonomy and territorial integrity of the Republic in 1528. This choice was to prove decisive for the future of the city, which, by entering the Empire's commercial orbit, allowed Genoese merchants to become creditors of primary importance in Europe. Acclaimed by the population, Andrea Doria was offered the office of doge, a title he refused, preferring to leave it to a group of reformers to draft a new constitution. The Republic of Genoa was proclaimed, transforming its economic power from commercial to financial. Genoese merchants became financial experts in bills of exchange, and the main sources of income were now banking operations of credit to the greatest European powers. The Genoese could finally regain some of the power and prestige lost in the 15th century. The period that followed, for about a century, from 1550 to 1650, was called "the century of the Genoese", during which the flourishing city showed great artistic and cultural vitality.

As the fate of Genoa was closely linked to that of Spain, which was financed by the Genoese for its trade and military campaigns, the gradual impoverishment of Spain and its empire inevitably marked the beginning of the decline of the power of the Republic. Taking advantage of this moment of weakness, the Savoys of neighboring Piedmont attempted to seize the city and its port on two occasions, but without success. In 1684, it was the turn of the French fleet of Louis XIV to violently bombard the city and its port. Humiliated, Genoa was obliged to send its doge to Versailles to personally ask the king for a cease-fire, with apologies for having conducted an anti-French policy. In 1746, during the war of the Austrian Succession, the city was occupied by Austrian troops, but they were driven out by a popular insurrection launched by Giovanni Battista Perasso, known as the Balilla, who became a symbolic figure of heroism and resistance to the invaders. But the city declined inexorably and in 1768 it was forced to cede Corsica to France. If during the French Revolution Genoa maintained its neutrality towards the revolutionary government, in 1797 it allied itself with Napoleon Bonaparte, whose family was of Genoese origin, before being included in the French Empire. This new alliance caused a new setback because, following the fall of Napoleon in 1814, the Congress of Vienna ordered, against the will of the Genoese Republic, the annexation of Genoa and Liguria to the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia of the House of Savoy.

Under the domination of the Savoy, Genoa underwent a rapid decline because Piedmont favored the interests of landowners to the detriment of the merchant vocation of the Genoese. Turin and Genoa were not only separated geographically, they were also separated intellectually, almost philosophically. Genoa, the ancient and prestigious Republic, whose constitutive foundations were neutrality and independence, was now subject to a warlike and strongly authoritarian dynasty. In 1849, after the Piedmontese defeat of Novara against the Austrians, the city saw a good opportunity to rise against the weakened House of Savoy, but the revolt was quickly and bloodily suppressed. Genoa then abandoned its ideals and its independence, and the idea of an Italian unity, a kind of federation headed by the kingdom of Piedmont, won out. On the night of May 5 to 6, 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Thousand Red Shirts set sail from Genoa for Sicily, kicking off the process of Italian unification. Genoa then experienced a period of relative prosperity thanks to the resumption of its port activity and industrial activities. Due to the large number of workers, Genoa has long been a politically left-wing city: in 1892, the Italian Workers' Party was born in Genoa, which in 1895 became the Italian Socialist Party.

From 1942 to 1944, the bombings hit Genoa and its region hard, especially the military port of La Spezia. It is estimated that 11,000 buildings were hit in the Ligurian capital. The fierce resistance of the partisans led to the departure of the German forces on 24 April 1945, even before the arrival of the Allies

While until the mid-1960s Genoa sent its workers to the United States or South America, particularly Argentina, between 1950 and 1960 the trend was reversed. Genoa forms with Milan and Turin an industrial triangle that attracts workers from southern Italy. Like the rest of northern Italy, the region was affected by the "southern question" and saw the arrival of migrants from the Mezzogiorno with some mistrust, sometimes even hostility.

During the 1990s, Liguria was confronted with "extra-community" immigration, that of Africans, Filipinos, South Americans and Albanians. Ventimiglia, on the French-Italian border, was for a time nicknamed the "Italian Calais" because of its many camps of migrants who, in the hope of crossing the border and reaching France, used mountain paths, tried to take a train, enter a truck..

In recent years, Genoa has been able to impose itself on the international scene, reaffirming its historical and political importance and its economic weight. In the 1980s, in preparation for the 1992 festivities celebrating the five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, titanic works led by the great architect Renzo Piano rehabilitated the Porto Antico area to reconcile the city with its port, which had become purely industrial. In 2004, Genoa was named European Capital of Culture to highlight the historical and cultural importance of the city in the history of Europe. This event gave a powerful boost to its attractiveness to the world

In 2011, and again in 2014, Genoa was the victim of violent rainfall, causing the overflow of nearby streams. The neighborhoods of Brignole, Quarto, Nervi, Voltri and Sestri Ponente were completely flooded, causing material damage. The municipal authorities were at that time heavily questioned for their poor management of the environmental situation. But, undoubtedly, the most significant event in recent history, the one that placed the city on the front page of all European newspapers, if not the world, was the collapse of the Morandi Bridge on August 14, 2018, resulting in the death of 43 people, hundreds of serious injuries and numerous evacuations. The responsibility of the builder and that of the national public works supervisory authorities were again called into question. It will take two years to rebuild a bridge at this location, and in August 2020 the viaduct Genova-San Giorgio is put into service in place of the old Morandi bridge. It was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, child of the city, bruised by the disaster. One kilometer long, it combines steel and concrete.

In February 2020, the epidemic of Covid-19 reached northern Italy, first mainly in Lombardy and Veneto, seats of the first European clusters, before spreading throughout the country and the rest of the continent, plunging Italy, like other countries in the world, into a long confinement. This parenthesis and the period of numerous and severe restrictions that followed weighed heavily on the economy and tourism. Since then, Genoa and Liguria have relaunched their activities with energy and enthusiasm.

Giorgia Meloni, former journalist and leader of the Conservative Party, is appointed President of the Council of Ministers; she is the first woman in history to become Prime Minister of Italy.