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Genoa and the Sea The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science 123rd series (2005) 1. Stephen G. Alter, William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language 2. Bethany Aram, Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe 3. Thomas Allison Kirk, Genoa and the Sea: Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic, 1559–1684 Genoa and the Sea Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic, 1559–1684 Thomas Allison Kirk The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of the Pribram Fund. © 2005 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2005 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 987654321 Johns Hopkins Paperback edition, 2013 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu LibraryThe Library of Congress of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication has catalogued the Data hardcover version of this bookLibrary as offollows: Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kirk, Thomas Allison, 1962– Genoa and the sea : policy and power in an early modern maritime republic, 1559–1684 / Thomas Allison Kirk. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8018-8083-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Genoa (Italy)—History—1528–1789. 2. Genoa (Italy)—History, Naval—17th century. 3. Genoa (Italy)—History, Naval—16th century. 4. Genoa (Italy)—Commerce—History—17th century. 5. Genoa (Italy)—Commerce—History—16th century. 6. Genoa (Italy)— Economic conditions—17the century. 7. Genoa (Italy)—Economic conditions—16th century. I. Title. DG638.3.K57 2005 945′. 18207—dc22 2004015976 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. isbn-13: 978-1-4214-0966-5 isbn-10: 1-4214-0966-6 Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected]. The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible. Contents List of Illustrations and Tables vii Preface ix Acknowledgments xv 1 The Republic Genoa in the Early Modern World 3 2 The Genoese and the Republic of Genoa 29 3 Public Galleys and Private Interests, 1559–1607 51 4 Diplomacy and the Rearmament Debate: The 84 Weight of the Spanish Alliance, 1607–1640 5 The Lure of the World’s Seas, 1640–1680 117 6 Galleons, Galleys, and the Free Port: Ships and 151 Power in a Little Country 7 Conclusion: A Century of Ships and Paper 186 Appendix A. Operating Costs of “Free Galleys,” 1646 203 Appendix B. Breakdown of Annual Operating 204 Expenses of a Mixed-Crew Galley, 1652 Notes 209 Bibliography 257 Index 269 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations and Tables Maps The Western Mediterranean 2 The Republic of Genoa in the Sixteenth and 4 Seventeenth Centuries Figures Cristoforo Grassi, View of Genoa in 1481 6 Dionisio di Martino, Excavation of the Sea Bed between the 33 Spinola and Calvi Piers in 1597 Palazzo San Giorgio 49 Giovanni Andrea Doria 73 View of the Island of Tabarka 82 Palazzo Ducale 83 Cornelius de Wael, Troops Embarking on a Galley in the 101 Port of Genoa The darsena and arsenal complex, detail of a 115 seventeenth-century view of the city “Occhiello” of Giovanni Bernardo Veneroso’s Genio 122 Ligure Risvegliato A Dutch sailing vessel and a galley at anchor 148 Genoa in the early eighteenth century 152 Tables 1 The twenty-eight alberghi created by the reforms of 1528 25 2 Families composing the “old nobility” 25 3 Genoese involvement in loans to the Spanish crown, 31 1520–1556 4 Total income and total expenses of the Magistrato delle 87 galere and income from freight charges, 1611–1639 5 Publicly owned galleys and galleons in the service of the 120 Republic of Genoa This page intentionally left blank Preface In contrast to most English-language scholarship on early modern Italy, this book focuses on the Republic of Genoa. British and American works have tended to give pride of place to the republics of Florence and Venice, often to some aspect of the former’s turbulence and its transformation into an “abso- lutist” state in the sixteenth century or to the seemingly eternal stability of the latter. Although some effort has been made in the past two decades to redress this bias in more general works dealing with the entire peninsula, all in all the imbalance remains. One of the aims of this study is to contribute to our under- standing of the diverse society of early modern Italy. The choice of the Repub- lic of Genoa as the center of our attention, however, does not represent a random selection of yet another Italian state to be contrasted to Florence and Venice but a deliberately chosen observation point on the Mediterranean world and the changing relationship between that world and the rest of Europe in a period of sweeping transformations. Prior to the interest in the activities of the Genoese bankers in Madrid and, to a lesser extent, the Genoese merchants in Seville—raised in the 1960s and 1970s by Fernand Braudel and Felipe Ruiz Martin—almost no studies were available in English on the Genoese of the early modern period (a situation that persists if we bear in mind that neither of these two historians is an Anglo- phone). Even since then, the few references made to the Genoese tend more often to be concerned with individual Genoese or groups of Genoese citizens rather than with the Republic of Genoa.1 In Italian, on the other hand, a rich tradition of local Genoese histories compares with that of most regions of Italy; some are of very high quality, but many suffer from all the weaknesses typical of the genre—a strictly regional scope. In recent years a small group of historians at the University of Genoa has made significant contributions toward use of the regional model, based on the region of Liguria, as a paradigm for phenomena that were very widespread in early modern Europe. Edoardo Grendi in partic- ular comes to mind, but also Giorgio Doria, Giuseppe Felloni, and Rodolfo x Preface Savelli. This work is meant to follow the example of these historians in using a study based on a circumscribed political unit, the Republic of Genoa, as a means of developing a political and economic model that can be applied to other re- gions and political units (whether states or classes) in early modern Europe. As a means of pursuing this goal I have chosen to examine the republic’s maritime policy—the construction of a standing military fleet, fiscal policy re- garding port traffic, efforts to stimulate or subsidize shipping, efforts to increase port traffic and maritime commerce—as a significant point of encounter. Here, political debate, commercial structures, and international relations all come to- gether to form a unique vantage point for observing the transformations taking place in Europe, against the backdrop of European expansion and the ongoing struggle between Spain and France, early modern Christendom’s superpowers. Such an examination is based primarily on a textual analysis of contemporary as- sessments of the political climate, commercial trends, and the like and the many proposals made to modify the republic’s maritime policy. Particular attention is given to those projects that in one way or another were put into practice, and es- pecially to the modifications made between formulation and realization. It is precisely these modifications that serve as a key to understanding the priorities set by the men of the day, but they also reveal contemporary perceptions of the social and economic worlds and the way in which those two worlds interacted. This choice of focus has determined the chronological period dealt with in this book. Although Andrea Doria’s successful coup of 1528 and the enactment of sweeping constitutional reforms in that year provide an obvious starting point for a panorama of Genoese society and the state’s political structure, a tangible maritime policy emerges only in 1559 with the creation of a permanent state body charged with overseeing a publicly owned squadron of vessels. Chrono- logically this coincided with another event that makes for a convenient refer- ence point in historical periodization: the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis between the houses of Habsburg and Valois. The end point of the period to be dealt with was even more readily apparent. In the wake of the French bombardment of the city in 1684 the Republic of Genoa cut the size of its galley squadron and in 1689 eliminated the squadron of sailing warships altogether. From that point on there were no significant changes in maritime or naval policy until the republic’s fall to Napoleon in 1797. The final phases of the political and economic parabola described in this book were marked by the loss of Genoese illusions regarding the republic’s abil- ity to compete militarily with nation-states and national navies. This analysis of Preface xi events should prove useful to current research on the relationship between the establishment of permanent navies and state building. The decision of the Re- public of Genoa to abandon its efforts to create a force capable of projecting sea power, opting instead for fiscal instruments in order to reach the same goals, could represent an interesting variant on the trends described in Jan Glete’s stimulating Warfare at Sea, 1500–1650.2 The approach adopted here owes a great deal to Karl Polanyi’s conception of the role of economics in premodern and early modern societies as a critique of analyses based strictly on classical economic models.

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