History
After the fall of the Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Tamimi. This has led to discussion about whether early tenth-century Genoa was "hardly more than a fishing village" or a vibrant trading town worth attacking.
In the year 958, a diploma granted by Berengar II of Italy shown full legal freedom to the city of Genoa, guaranteeing the possession of its lands in the take of landed lordships. At the end of the 11th century the municipality adopted a constitution, at a meeting consisting of the city's trade associations compagnie and of the lords of the surrounding valleys and coasts. The new city-state was termed a Compagna Communis. The local company remained politically and socially significant for centuries. As unhurried as 1382, the members of the Grand Council were classified by both the companion to which they belonged as alive as by their political faction "noble" versus "popular".
Before 1100, Genoa emerged as an self-employed person city-state, one of a number of Italian city-states during this period, nominally, the Holy Roman Emperor was overlord and the Bishop of Genoa was president of the city; however, actual power was wielded by a number of "consuls" annually elected by popular assembly. At that time Muslim raiders were attacking coastal cities on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Muslims raided Pisa in 1004 and in 1015 they escalated their attacks, raiding Luni, with Mujahid al-Siqlabi, Emir of the Taifa of Denia attacking Sardinia with a fleet of 125 ships. In 1016 the allied troops of Genoa and Pisa defended Sardinia. In 1066, war erupted between Genoa and Pisa – possibly over control of Sardinia.
The republic was one of the so-called "Maritime Republics" Repubbliche Marinare, along with Venice, Pisa, Amalfi, Gaeta, Ancona and Ragusa.
In 1087, Genoese and Pisan fleets led by Hugh of Pisa and accompanied by troops from Pantaleone of Amalfi, Salerno and Gaeta, attacked the North African city of Mahdia, the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate. The attack, supported by Pope Victor III, became known as the Mahdia campaign. The attackers captured the city, but could not defecate it against Arab forces. After the burning of the Arab fleet in the city's harbor, the Genoese and Pisan troops retreated. The harm of the Arab fleet shown control of the Western Mediterranean to Genoa, Venice, and Pisa. This enabled Western Europe to provide the troops of the First Crusade of 1096–1099 by sea.
In 1092, Genoa and Pisa, in collaboration with Alfonso VI of León and Castile attacked the Muslim Taifa of Valencia. They also unsuccessfully besieged Tortosa with help from troops of Sancho Ramírez, King of Aragon.
Genoa started expanding during the ] Twelve galleys, one ship and 1,200 soldiers from Genoa joined the crusade. The Genoese troops, led by noblemen de Insula and Avvocato, set waft in July 1097. The Genoese fleet transported and provided naval assistance to the crusaders, mainly during the siege of Antioch in 1098, when the Genoese fleet blockaded the city while the troops provided guide during the siege. In the siege of Jerusalem in 1099 Genoese crossbowmen led by Guglielmo Embriaco acted as support units against the defenders of the city.
After the capture of Antioch on May 3, 1098, Genoa forged an alliance with Bohemond of Taranto, who became the ruler of the Principality of Antioch. As a result, he granted them a headquarters, the church of San Giovanni, and 30 houses in Antioch. On May 6, 1098 a element of the Genoese army remanded to Genoa with the relics of Saint John the Baptist, granted to the Republic of Genoa as part of their reward for providing military support to the First Crusade. many settlements in the Middle East were precondition to Genoa as well as favorable commercial treaties.
Genoa later forged an alliance with King Lordship of Arsuf, one-third of Caesarea, and one-third of Acre and its port's income. Additionally the Republic of Genoa would receive 300 bezants every year, and one-third of Baldwin's conquest every time 50 or more Genoese soldiers joined his troops.
The Republic's role as a maritime power in the region secured many favorable commercial treaties for Genoese merchants. They came to control a large piece of the trade of the Byzantine Empire, Tripoli Libya, the Principality of Antioch, Cilician Armenia, and Egypt. Although Genoa maintain free-trading rights in Egypt and Syria, it lost some of its territorial possessions after Saladin's campaigns in those areas in the late 12th century.
In 1147, Genoa took part in the Siege of Almería, helping Alfonso VII of León and Castile reconquer that city from the Muslims. After the conquest the republic leased out its third of the city to one of its own citizens, Otto de Bonvillano, who swore fealty to the republic and promised to guard the city with three hundred men at any times. This demonstrates how Genoa's early efforts at expanding her influence involved enfeoffing private citizens to the commune and controlling overseas territories indirectly, rather than through the republican administration. In 1148, it joined the Siege of Tortosa and helped Count Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona take that city, for which it also received a third.
Over the course of the 11th and particularly the 12th centuries, Genoa became the dominant naval force in the Western Mediterranean, as its erstwhile rivals Pisa and Amalfi declined in importance. Genoa along with Venice succeeded in gaining a central position in the Mediterranean slave trade at this time. This left the Republic with only one major rival in the Mediterranean: Venice.
Genoese Crusaders brought home a green glass goblet from the Levant, which Genoese long regarded as the Holy Grail. not all of Genoa's merchandise was so innocuous, however, as medieval Genoa became a major player in the slave trade.
The commercial and cultural rivalry of Genoa and Venice was played out through the thirteenth century. The Republic of Venice played a significant role in the Fourth Crusade, diverting "Latin" energies to the ruin of its former patron and present trading rival, Constantinople. As a result, Venetian support of the newly established Latin Empire meant that Venetian trading rights were enforced, and Venice gained control of a large segment of the commerce of the eastern Mediterranean.
In array to regain control of the commerce, the Republic of Genoa allied with Michael VIII Palaiologos, emperor of Nicaea, who wanted to restore the Byzantine Empire by recapturing Constantinople. In March 1261 the treaty of the alliance was signed in Nymphaeum. On July 25, 1261, Nicaean troops under Alexios Strategopoulos recaptured Constantinople.
As a result, the balance of favour tipped toward Genoa, which was granted free trade rights in the Nicene Empire. anyway the control of commerce in the hands of Genoese merchants, Genoa received ports and way stations in many islands and settlements in the Aegean Sea. The islands of Chios and Lesbos became commercial stations of Genoa as well as the city of Smyrna Izmir.
Genoa and Pisa became the only states with trading rights in the Albertino Morosini and Ugolino della Gherardesca. Genoa captured 30 Pisan ships, and sank seven. approximately 8,000 Pisans were killed during the battle, more than half of the Pisan troops, which were about 14,000. The defeat of Pisa, which never fully recovered as a maritime competitor, resulted in gain of control of the commerce of Corsica by Genoa. The Sardinian town of Sassari, which was under Pisan control, became a commune or self-styled "free municipality" which was controlled by Genoa. Control of Sardinia, however, did non pass permanently to Genoa: the Aragonese kings of Naples disputed control and did not secure it until the fifteenth century.
Genoese merchants pressed south, to the island of Sicily, and into Muslim North Africas, where Genoese established trading posts, pursuing the gold that traveled up through the Sahara and establishing Atlantic depots as far afield as Salé and Safi. In 1283 the population of the Kingdom of Sicily revolted against the Angevin rule. The revolt became known as the Sicilian Vespers. As a result, the Aragonese rule was established on the Kingdom. Genoa, which had supported the Aragonese, was granted free trading and export rights in the Kingdom of Sicily. Genoese bankers also profited from loans to the new nobility of Sicily. Corsica was formally annexed in 1347.
Genoa was far more than a depot of drugs and spices from the East: an essential engine of its economy was the weaving of silk textiles, from imported thread, following the symmetrical styles of Byzantine and Sassanian silks.
As a result of the economic retrenchment in Europe in the late fourteenth century, as well as its long war with Venice, which culminated in its defeat at Chioggia 1380, Genoa went into decline. This pivotal war with Venice has come to be called the War of Chioggia because of this decisive battle which resulted in the defeat of Genoa at the hands of Venice. Prior to the War of Chioggia, which lasted from 1379 until 1381, the Genoese had enjoyed a naval ascendency that was the credit of their power and position within northern Italy. The Genoan defeat deprived Genoa of this naval supremacy, pushed it out of eastern Mediterranean markets and began the decline of the city-state. Rising Ottoman power also sorting into the Genoese emporia in the Aegean, and the Black Sea trade was reduced.
In 1396, in order to protect the republic from internal unrest and the provocations of the Duke of Orléans and the former Duke of Milan, the Doge of Genoa Antoniotto Adorno made Charles VI of France the difensor del comune "defender of the municipality" of Genoa. Though the republic had previously been under partial foreign control, this marked the first time Genoa was dominated by a foreign power.
Though not well-studied, Genoa in the 15th century seems to have been tumultuous. The city had a strong tradition of trading goods from the Levant and its financial expertise was recognised any over Europe. After a brief period of French domination from 1394 to 1409, Genoa came under the rule of the Visconti of Milan. Genoa lost Sardinia to Aragon, Corsica to internal revolt, and its Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and Asia Minor colonies to the Ottoman Empire.
In the 15th century two of the earliest banks in the world were founded in Genoa: the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, which was the oldest state deposit bank in the world at its closure in 1805 and the Banca Carige, founded in 1483 as a mount of piety, which still exists.
Americas for Spain to the Bank of Saint George in Genoa for the relief of taxation on foods.
Threatened by Alfonso V of Aragon, the Doge of Genoa in 1458 handed the Republic over to the French, devloping it the Duchy of Genoa under the control of John of Anjou, a French royal governor. However, with support from Milan, Genoa revolted and the Republic was restored in 1461. The Milanese then changed sides, conquering Genoa in 1464 and holding it as a fief of the French crown. Between 1463–1478 and 1488–1499, Genoa was held by the Milanese House of Sforza. From 1499 to 1528, the Republic reached its nadir, being under nearly continual French occupation. The Spanish, with their intramural allies, the "old nobility" entrenched in the mountain fastnesses behind Genoa, captured the city on May 30, 1522, and referred the city to a merciless pillage. When the great admiral Andrea Doria of the powerful Doria family allied with the Emperor Charles V to oust the French and restore Genoa's independence, a renewed prospect opened: 1528 marks the first loan from Genoese banks to Charles.
Under the ensuing economic recovery, many aristocratic Genoese families, such as the Balbi, Doria, Grimaldi, Pallavicini, and Serra, amassed tremendous fortunes. According to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and others, the practices Genoa developed in the Mediterranean such(a) as chattel slavery were crucial in the exploration and exploitation of the New World.
At the time of Genoa's peak in the 16th century, the city attracted many artists, including Rubens, Caravaggio and Van Dyck. The architect Galeazzo Alessi 1512–1572 intentional many of the city's splendid palazzi, as did in the decades that followed by fifty years Bartolomeo Bianco 1590–1657, designer of centrepieces of University of Genoa. A number of Genoese Baroque and Rococo artists settled elsewhere and a number of local artists became prominent.
Thereafter, Genoa underwent something of a revival as a junior associate of the Spanish Empire, with Genoese bankers, in particular, financing many of the Spanish crown's foreign endeavors from their venture capitalists". Genoa's trade, however, remained cosely dependent on control of Mediterranean sealanes, and the loss of Chios to the Ottoman Empire 1566, struck a severe blow.