Genoa: the Other Maritime Republic
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Thomas Allison Kirk. Genoa and the Sea: Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic (1559-1684). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. 320 pp. $52.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8018-8083-4. Reviewed by Matt Vester Published on H-Italy (November, 2009) Commissioned by Gregory Hanlon (Dalhousie University) This book seeks to expand our understanding book quite successfully draws together many of of early modern Italy by focusing on a topic be‐ the main themes in the scattered secondary litera‐ yond the well-trod paths of Florentine and Vene‐ ture on Genoese political history, constructing a tian history. It examines Genoa's position in the framework that is buttressed with a broad range Mediterranean world through a study of the re‐ of references to administrative archives. Genoa public's feet-building activities and port policies and the Sea adds a welcome new Ligurian per‐ between 1559 and 1684. Kirk fnds that over the spective to Anglophone scholarship on sixteenth- course of this period, Genoa gradually shifted and seventeenth-century Italy. from a position of intimacy with the Spanish Kirk's book is organized in three main parts: crown to one of neutrality. The construction and a description of Genoese history and institutions maintenance of a feet of state galleys (and later, until 1559 (chapters 1-2), a narrative of the debate galleons) was primarily a political and rhetorical over the construction and use of a state feet be‐ phenomenon, especially during the frst seventy tween 1559 and 1684 (chapters 3-5), and an as‐ years or so of this period. In practice, the repub‐ sessment of Genoese port policy during the seven‐ lic's feet guaranteed neither security nor com‐ teenth century. mercial revival. On the other hand, the formula‐ The frst chapter provides a brief history of tion of policies (beginning in the early seven‐ the republic, discussing Andrea Doria's rearrange‐ teenth century) designed to open up Genoa as a ment of the Genoese political order into twenty- "free port"--for Genoa this meant a warehousing eight alberghi, which eventually resulted in the and distribution center within Mediterranean replacement of the old popolari-nobili factional trade circuits--experienced greater success, and split with a vecchi-nuovi one. Chapter 2 takes up should be understood in the context of Genoese the key role played by Genoa in the structure of disengagement from Spanish hegemony. Kirk's H-Net Reviews Spanish dominion between roughly 1550 and elites to privilege the Spanish alliance. Territorial 1630. As vecchi families began to increase theirf‐ conflict with Spain (over places in Liguria) be‐ nancial activities, they simultaneously changed came part of a debate over "sovereignty over the their attitude toward the sea, abandoning ship‐ seas," and when the republic made an official ping and ship-owning, though some Genoese con‐ claim of royal status in 1637, it seemed obvious tinued to hold contracts with the Spanish crown that a state feet was necessary. For Kirk, feet con‐ that placed their galleys under the king's service. struction was driven not by merchants seeking a This chapter closes with a brief look at the Bank profit, but by political and rhetorical interests. of San Giorgio, created in 1407 to consolidate the The fnal phase of feet policy played out after republic's debts in a process resulting in the alien‐ 1640, a period of "navalist predomination in Ge‐ ation of most of the republic's sources of revenue noese politics" during which, ironically, the to the bank's direct administration. worlds of fnance and maritime commerce were Chapters 3 through 5 take the reader through separate spheres for Genoese elites (p. 148). Ge‐ three phases of "policy development" concerning noese efforts to increase the republic's interna‐ the state feet. During the frst phase, Genoa was a tional profile were hampered by the 1656 plague close ally of Spain, and Genoese bankers (from outbreak that carried away half of the city's in‐ vecchi families) completely dominated royal f‐ habitants. The republic's last galleon was sold in nances. Relations between the states were based 1689 and Genoa left its maritime tradition behind, on the ability of the Doria family to continue to having failed to compete effectively with the deliver a stable Genoese alliance (keeping Ge‐ Dutch. noese politics under the control of the vecchi-- Chapter 6 focuses on rules surrounding port who in turn benefited from privileged access to traffic in Genoa, seeing these policies as a differ‐ Spanish debt--was key to this arrangement) and ent facet of Genoa's relation to the sea. In the ear‐ the use of private Genoese galleys (also owned by ly 1590s Genoa declared itself a free port for vecchi) for Spanish service. Uberto Foglietta (in grain, granting tax exemptions and safe passage his Della Repubblica di Genova, 1559) and the no‐ to ships under certain conditions--a different no‐ bili sharply criticized this state of affairs, pushing tion of a "free port" from that operative in the republic to create a magistracy for state gal‐ Livorno, which was designed to attract new resi‐ leys (that could protect the raw silk that many no‐ dent foreign merchants. The Bank of San Giorgio bili families imported from Sicily). After the civil proved willing to help bear expenses related to war of 1575, nuovi and vecchi gradually merged the free port, investing in the construction of the into a single interest group. These Genoese elites new breakwater (molo nuovo) in 1638-43. When, sought protection for shipping lanes and grew to in 1654, Genoa permitted foreign merchants to resent Spanish presumptions that the republic take up residence port traffic increased, though should automatically defer to crown demands in Genoa remained unable to overtake Livorno's pri‐ military and political affairs. Kirk sees the gradual mary position as the key western Mediterranean dissolution of the Spanish alliance (chapter 4, cov‐ port. Kirk fnds that free port policy was not in‐ ering the years 1607-1640) as a second phase in compatible with naval armament, though on the fleet policy development. The vecchi families be‐ whole the bank was more interested in the for‐ gan gradually to withdraw themselves from fnan‐ mer (for fscal reasons) and the Senate and other cial activities at court, and as their authority in republican institutions in the latter (for political Spain weakened, there was both less of an incen‐ reasons). tive on the part of the king to control Genoese pol‐ itics so closely, and fewer reasons for Genoese 2 H-Net Reviews Kirk concludes that feet-building was an ex‐ sense, though occasionally the role of the Bank of pression of the republic's political "drive to assert San Giorgio is also mentioned. Aside from the Do‐ a certain notion of sovereignty and neutrality" (p. ria family (who function almost like unofficial 187), but that free port policies were more effec‐ viceroys for the Spanish crown for much of this tive tools for a "small, economically powerful period), the political agency of specific families or state" like Genoa to pursue its interests. But the family groupings is not closely analyzed. The au‐ book also makes it clear that at different points in thor, admitting that an examination of more "bio‐ time, a range of groups defined the republic's in‐ graphical material" and "the network of social terests in a variety of ways. It is not clear whether and economic relationships" in which individual Kirk believes that the Genoese state, as a set of in‐ Genoese were involved would have been helpful, stitutions, had some sort of essentialized matrix of indicates that he intends to undertake this project interests. in the future (p. xiii). If in this next book Kirk is It is strange that the history of the republic of able to provide (1) a provisional analysis of the Genoa, precisely during the period dubbed by Fer‐ specific commercial, fnancial, and political en‐ nand Braudel as "the Genoese century," has re‐ gagements of key individuals and families; and (2) ceived so little attention, especially in English-lan‐ a sketch of the networks into which these individ‐ guage scholarship. There has, however, been uals and families organized themselves over time, some exciting Italian scholarly production on ear‐ this would be very good news indeed for scholars ly modern Genoa, led by Edoardo Grendi and his of the early modern Mediterranean. students (especially Osvaldo Raggio). Kirk does Note not engage the overall arguments made in this [1]. Edoardo Grendi, I Balbi: Una famiglia body of work, perhaps because his interests tend genovese fra Spagna e Impero (Turin: Einaudi, toward administrative history, while Grendi and 1997); and Osvaldo Raggio, Faide e parentele: Lo Raggio focus on political and social relationships stato genovese visto dalla Fontanabuona (Turin: that are informally institutionalized (at best). But Einaudi, 1990), xxvi. Kirk's useful synthesis and observations would have been strengthened by a direct confrontation with this work, whether Grendi's emphasis on the cultural and ethnographic context in which Ge‐ noese elites lived and acted, or Raggio's qualifica‐ tion of "la forma-stato genovese" as "un sistema di interazioni che riflettono le forme di organiz‐ zazione locale non meno che le iniziative del Principe."[1] Coming to terms with this sort of destabilization of what is meant by "the state" would have prevented Kirk from taking for grant‐ ed what he means by "policy," and would have certainly deepened our understanding not only of Genoese maritime activity, but of early modern political practices and assumptions more general‐ ly. What is clear is that the chief actor in this ac‐ count is the republic, defined in an institutional 3 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-italy Citation: Matt Vester.