GENOA, ITALY

“Seas without fish, mountains without trees, men without honesty, women without modesty,”—that was what her enemies said about the republic of Genoa in olden times. And historians seem to agree that the character of the Genoese in those days was not of the best. All their energy was concentrated on commerce and the pursuit of money. They took no interest in art nor in any of the intellectual development of Italy during the Middle Ages. But these bad traits of the Genoese have all disappeared.

The city of Genoa now has 275,000 inhabitants, and is the seat of a university and an archbishop. It is the headquarters of the fourth Italian army corps, and is a strong fortress, as well as being the chief commercial town in Italy.

Genoa, with its many beautiful palaces, rising above the sea in a wide half-circle, is called “La Superba” (the superb). The old town is a network of narrow and steep streets, lined with many-storied buildings; but the newer part of the city has broad and straight thoroughfares.

In the seventeenth century the Genoese built as a protection against their enemies a rampart over nine miles long. They also erected on the heights around the town ten detached forts.

From the earliest times Genoa has been famous as a seaport. Today it still possesses its great mercantile supremacy, and in addition is an important emigration harbor. Far back in 400 B. C. its trade with the Greeks, Etruscans, and Celts was large, and as time went on it increased greatly.

In the Middle Ages the little rival Italian states were constantly at war with one another. Genoa had a war with Pisa, and in 1284 shattered the power of that city forever in a terrible naval battle at Meloria. Then came the struggle with Venice which ended in the defeat of Genoa at the battle of Chioggia in 1380.

The city of Genoa was also filled with internal political strife. Two or three different factions were continually fighting with one another, and this finally led to Genoa’s being always under the rule of some foreign prince. Finally in 1797 the aristocratic government of Genoa was superseded by the democratic Ligurian Republic, established by Napoleon, and in 1805 Liguria was formally annexed to the empire of France. Ten years later it was annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia.

Giuseppe Mazzini, the patriotic writer, was born at Genoa in 1805, and Garibaldi, the great Italian patriot and leader, with whom he worked, though born at Nice in 1807, was the son of a Genoese of Chiavari.

NAPLES, ITALY

NAPLES, ITALY, which is considered by many people to be the most beautifully situated city in Europe, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “The Mediterranean.”

Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION