Republic of Genoa

A merchant republic that ran the Black Sea trade, invented much of modern banking, and preferred lending money to holding territory. Genoa emerged as a naval power in the eleventh century, took part in the crusades for commercial privileges rather than piety, and built a network of trading colonies from the Aegean to Crimea - Caffa, its Black Sea port, is where the plague is thought to have entered Europe in 1347 aboard Genoese galleys. Victory over Pisa at Meloria in 1284 gave it the western sea, and a century of war with Venice over the eastern trade ended in defeat at Chioggia in 1380. The republic then reinvented itself as a financial power: the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, was among the first public banks and effectively governed Genoa's colonies as a corporation. Genoese bankers financed the Spanish crown for a century, recycling American silver, and the period is sometimes called the Genoese age of capitalism. Columbus was Genoese and sailed for Spain because his own city was not interested. Andrea Doria restored the republic in 1528. Napoleon ended it in 1797. Genoa's historic centre and its palazzi are a World Heritage site. The republic lasted from the eleventh century to 1797 and held Corsica until 1768, when it sold the island to France. Its dialect and its merchant families spread across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The Bank of Saint George operated until 1805. Jeans take their name from Genoa via French, from the fabric its sailors wore. Paganini was Genoese.

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