Genoa was one of the great maritime republics of medieval Europe, shaping trade, finance and politics across the Mediterranean. This course explores Genoa’s rise to power through its art, architecture and commercial networks. We examine how wealth, ambition and rivalry influenced cultural expression and left a lasting historical legacy. Ideal for those interested in medieval history, art and early global connections.

DELIVERY MODE

• Face to Face

SUGGESTED READING

• Thomas Allison Kirk, Genoa and the Sea, 1559 - 1684: Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic (John Hopkins University Press: 2005).
• A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa - 1600-1750, ed. Jonathan Bober, Piero Boccardo and Franco Boggero (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).

COURSE OUTLINE

• How did Genoa become an Italian maritime power, in the context of the other Italian maritime powers - Amalfi, Pisa and Venice?
• The First Crusades (1096–1099) role in establishing Genoa as a maritime power and its trade with the Levant.
• How The Treaty of Nymphaeum (1261) with the Byzantine Empire, gave access to vast trade routes into the Black Sea, at the expense of its maritime rival Venice.
• Genoa's peak dominance of Western Mediterranean trade, following the defeat of Pisa at the battle of Meloria (1284).
• Why did Genoa transition itself away from maritime trade to banking in the 16th century?
• How did the Bank of Saint George become one of the world's first modern state deposit banks, financing Spanish colonial ventures in the New World?
• We will see how from the mid-sixteenth century, Genoa emerged as a leader in elite urban planning, while ushering in two centuries of masterful painters.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Gain an understanding of Genoa's leading role in both maritime trade and banking within the Mediterranean, the Italian peninsula, Europe and globally.
2. See how Genoa's evolving historical autonomy, gave context to the visual arts of the c. 1550s to c. 1750s.