Genova, the town
Genova originated as a meeting point of Ligurian people,
a population of Mediterranean origins, with Phoenicians and Greeks. After the
Roman period Genova was in the orbit of Byzantines, Longobards and Franks, suffering
by naval raids of the Saracens.
From the turn of the Millennium Genova became a great naval power, which progressively
extended domain over the Liguria and Corsica, and was one of the main ports
of the Mediterranean, with commercial relations from the Atlantic Ocean as far
as China.
The Republic, whose top authority was the Doge, was subject from time to time
to civil wars until 1528 when the alliance between Andrea Doria and Spain started
the so-called Golden Century of Genova, a flourishing of Genoese finance all
over Europe with the construction, in the city and in the suburbs, of splendid
palaces and villas.
The old aristocratic Republic survived until 1797 but, after Napoleon, Liguria
was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The passion of Genoese for independence
expressed itself in figures of the Italian Risorgimento such as Mazzini and
Garibaldi.
In the first Italian industry development Genova had a main role as maritime
pole and great industrial city: here the first locomotives and iron ships in
Italy were built. The city was then a vertex of the industrial triangle, with
Milan and Turin, but after the '60's there was the crisis of the great industry.
At the start of the Millennium, after a phase of decline we are witnessing a
period of recovery and growth of traffic and of the role of the port: once again
it is in the port that the city meets the history. The port is place of commercial
and industrial activities and point of arrival and of passing for tourism. Indeed
its historical part is a tourism/cultural area connecting the splendid old part
of the city to the sea.
The new economic-strategic design of the city sees now Genova as a port and
a tourism and cultural city, oriented towards facilities, but preserving an
economy which has also a strong technical character. (from the homepage www.genova-2004.it)