In the midst of Paolo’s generous designs, Louis XII., to whom the Geonese nobility had opened the doors of their country, descended upon him with a formidable army. Genoa was converted into a field of battle; every plebeian became a soldier, and the valour of the citizens checked the impetuous advance of the French battalions. But the patriots were overcome by numbers and discipline; Paolo di Novi was betrayed and butchered; the people were reduced to slavery. Rodolfo di Lanoia, to whom Louis committed the government of the city, was constrained to resign his office,—says Foglietta—on account of the boundless avarice and insolence of the nobles who struggled to advance their private interests by ruining the public weal.
As Boccanegra was the father of our popular liberty so Doria was its executioner. He wrested the government from the hands of the people, and committed it to those of the nobles. He momentarily silenced, but did not destroy, the rage of parties. By depressing the populace, he cut the nerves of the Republic; he gave us independence in name, but he destroyed the franchises of the citizens. A great historian has justly said, that the liberties given us by Andrea Doria are ridiculous; the future will accept that as the final decision of history.
Andrea was a soldier from his youth. He learned the rudiments of war from Domenico Doria, who was of his blood and had distinguished himself in the court of Innocent VIII. He served successfully under the Pope, Ferdinando the old of Naples and his son Alfonso II., and sustained the siege of Rocca Guglelma against Gonsalvo di Cordova. Afterwards he fought under Giovanni della Rovere, duke of Urbino, and having been elected tutor of the duke’s son, Francesco Maria, he saved him from the intrigues of Cæsar Borgia, by taking him to Venice and entrusting him to the protection of the Venitian senate.
He allied himself with the party of the Fregosi, who were friends of his house; and when Doge Ottaviano besieged for twenty-two months the fortress of Cape Faro, which was held for the French; he fought single-handed with the brave Emanuel Cavallo, and was slightly wounded in the contest.
But his greatest glory was acquired in naval war. His battles with the Moors and Turks gave him fame and wealth, and after the battle of Pianosa (1519), in which, with six vessels, he conquered thirteen of the enemy’s; capturing several with the famous corsair Gad Ali’ he became the terror of Saracen ships. When the Fregosi were driven from power and their places taken by the Adorni, Doria, disdaining to serve under this family, sold his services to France, and took with him six galleys belonging to the Republic, which he never restored. The motive of this appropriation of public property was his bitter animosity to Spain, whose party the Adorni and the Republic had embraced. This animosity was rendered more violent by the sack of Genoa in 1522 by the Spanish army, a pillage so horrible that when the authors of it, Pescara, Colonna and Sforza, presented themselves to Pope Hadrian humbly asking pardon, the pontiff indignantly repulsed them, crying,—“I cannot, I ought not, I will not forgive you.”
Doria was so incensed that he condemned to chains and the galleys, without hope of redemption, all Spaniards who fell into his hands.
In the year 1527, Pope Clement VIII. was allied with his most Christian Majesty, with the Venitians the Florentines and other governments against the power of Charles. To further the objects of the alliance Francis sent Lautrec into Italy at the head of forty thousand men, and Andrea Doria besieged Genoa with a large force. It is not within our scope to describe how the Republic, through the influence of Cæsar Fregosi and Doria, went over to the party of France. Francis, to gratify the wishes of Andrea, entrusted the government to Teodoro Trivulzio, Antoniotto Adorno, having gracefully retired from the office of Doge.
Doria having been created admiral of France, with a salary of thirty-six thousand crowns, rose to great fame, on account of his victories and those of his lieutenants. Among these victories, that of Filippino Doria in the gulf of Salerno, deserves a brief mention, both because it was won by Italian arms, and because something should be added to the accounts given by other authors. Lautrec, while besieging Naples, desired to blockade the port, so as to prevent the supply of provisions to its defenders, and sent for the galleys of Doria, seven of which were then in Leghorn, under the command of Filippino Doria Count of Sassocorbario and Canosa and Andrea’s cousin.
Naples, surrounded on every side, would have been unable to sustain the siege, and the viceroy, Hugo Moncada, saw the necessity of breaking the enclosing lines by some daring undertaking. He collected six galleys called the Capitana and Gobba, (the property of Fabrizio Giustiniano) one belonging to Sicames, another which was the property of Don Bernardo Vallamarino, the Perpugnana and Calabrese. To these were added ten brigantines and some smaller vessels. The viceroy embarked upon the ships twelve hundred Spaniards clad in mail and commanded by the flower of the officers and barons of the kingdom. Finally, he himself joined the expedition and gave the command of the artillery to Gerolamo da Trani and that of the army to Fabrizio Giustiniano, called the hunchback, a brave Genoese in the pay of Spain. The latter, knowing the courage and skill of the Ligurian mariners advised that the Spanish fleet should avoid a close engagement with Doria; but a contrary opinion prevailed.
Count Filippino was in the waters of Salerno when the report reached him that the imperial fleet had left Naples.