3

San Giorgio’s Political Features

3.1. Genoese Families

Did the families that held offices in San Giorgio develop a coherent strategy over time? This question, which appears simple on the surface, presupposes that members of the same family maintained loyalty for long periods to San Giorgio. In many cities on the Italian peninsula in the Middle Ages and early modern era, this did indeed occur—members of various families remained loyal to an institution—and Genoese families played an important role in the history of their city.

The most important systems of family power in Genoa were the alberghi, neighborhood organizations, which have not yet been studied in depth. An albergo grouped one or more families associated together in a close area of the city, holding administrative, social, and political powers and privileges.¹ While until the sixteenth century they held informal but substantial powers, after 1528 the alberghi became a type of political representative group that voted to elect individuals to political offices. Apart from the alberghi, some Genoese families exercised strong political powers and a strong economic influence. Two main political groups existed in Genoa, the nobles and populares (popular, i.e., composed of merchants and artisans). Two families from the populares, the Fregoso and the Adorno, competed for the position of doge throughout the fifteenth century, and whenever one of them was defeated, the family went into exile. Some smaller families such as the Sauli, which only had a few members, moved their businesses to Rome, becoming the popes’ main financers at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Some noble families, like the Fieschi, had strong territorial power and received feudal possessions from the emperors; they had traditional longstanding enemies and allies and often pursued coherent political actions over time. The Adorno, Fregoso, Sauli, and Fieschi families are examples of coherent groups of powers. Some other families, such as the Giustiniani, were quite large and their structure is closer to that of a clan, making it more difficult to see coherence in their actions.

Not all the rich Genoese families held offices in San Giorgio. Some were excluded; others did not invest their wealth there. An analysis of the families whose members were protettori in San Giorgio for the period 1410–1518 confirms that the data should be considered family by family.² The Giustiniani, for instance, held 36 protettori positions, while the Doria held 46 out of the 864 positions. These data do not necessarily mean they had a strong influence, since both families had various separate branches. On the other hand, the case of the Lomellini, who had 44 protettori, is more interesting, since the family had far fewer members than the two others. The data we have for the fifteenth century should be compared with the data on family trees to understand how many members of a given family were elected to San Giorgio. However, this kind of detailed information is not yet available, since we do not have all the family trees of all the Genoese families.³ Furthermore, only a few Genoese families that held offices in San Giorgio pursued a coherent and consistent political stance.

Table 3.1 The six most represented families in San Giorgio and the Commune (1490–1528)4
Genoese families	Doria	Spinola	Lomellino	Grimaldi	Sauli	Fieschi
Number of members in San Giorgio	20	20	17	15	15	0
Number of anziani	57	63	61	58	0	63

At present, only partial research studies are available. For the period 1490–1528, the group of the six families most represented in San Giorgio does not correspond to the group of the six families most represented in the Commune (Office of Anziani). See Table 3.1.

The list of Office of the anziani in the Commune is longer than that of the protettori of San Giorgio. Twelve anziani were elected twice yearly, while in San Giorgio eight protettori were elected once a year. A total of 81.5% of the family names of San Giorgio for 1490–1528 appear in the list of the anziani for the same years. This overlap is quite consistent. If we focus, however, not on families, but on the persons, the numbers change. Within the same period, a total of 1,607 anziani were elected in the Commune and 320 protettori in San Giorgio. Among these persons—within a time frame of five years—127 were elected once as protettore and once as anziano. All the others had a role in only one institution, either the Commune or San Giorgio.

This difference—together with the fact that the Sauli did not appear in the anziani and, vice versa, that the Fieschi did not appear in San Giorgio—is important, as it shows that the overlap is not complete. For the following century, we have different kinds of data. Carlo Bitossi has demonstrated that for the late sixteenth century, the same group of people sat in San Giorgio and within the Republic (the Commune had by then been replaced by the Republic).⁵ While the data do not allow us to say whether within the same families different members pursued similar politics, they allow us to think that there was a homogenous group of people who led the Republic and San Giorgio in the late sixteenth century. Part III of this book—which discusses the existence of a double power in Genoa—will return to this point.

3.2. Offices

The main offices of San Giorgio were the eight protettori. In 1411, election regulations were established, and political offices of the Commune and San Giorgio were divided among nobles and populares.⁶ These two main groups were political groups more than social ones, and divisions made according to the groups were called divisions by colors (colori). The protettori and procuratori elected 24 probi cives (good citizens), half from the nobles and half from the populares, among those who had invested at least 1,000 lire in San Giorgio’s loca. The populares Sauli and Giustiniani were no different from some noble families: they were wealthy merchants, like many noble Genoese families. As was true for many noble families on the Italian peninsula, some noble Genoese families did not trade, focusing instead on holding feudal possessions. The division between nobles and populares was established during the fourteenth century and remained stable until 1528. The 24 probi cives and the eight former protettori elected the eight new protettori from the group of investors of San Giorgio with at least 1,000 lire in loca. The eight protettori only held office for a year.

The process of selecting the individuals included both election and drawing lots—the definition was “ad voces et ad balotolas” (at voices and ballots). Scholars do not agree on how this process worked. Some describe it as a well-organized system that guaranteed the process functioning smoothly over time. Other scholars, however, who note that the families were equally represented across decades, take that to mean that the protettori divided the offices among themselves, avoiding the selection process and deciding the elections.⁷ Rodolfo Savelli has found various documents that show that—within the territories of San Giorgio abroad and the 1463 regulae of San Giorgio—references to the so-called colors such as the categories of Guelph and Ghibellines were respected.⁸

The eight protettori had all the powers that the procuratori of the Compere had before the formation of San Giorgio.⁹ Two among the eight remained in charge the following year, but now as advisors without any powers of decision. They could explain their opinions and offer advice. Once the eight left their offices, they could not be elected as scribes of San Giorgio, and this rule extended to their relatives—to the third degree of cognation and the second of agnation.¹⁰

The new electoral process of 1411 moved the process from the Commune to the Compere of San Giorgio, because at that point the investors chose the protettori.¹¹ In 1425, new regulations for the council of San Giorgio were issued. The protettori defined who was eligible, and 40 shareholders had to participate in the council for it to be valid.¹² In 1437, a new rule decreed that the Bank of San Giorgio could issue money for the public good or lend money to the Commune only after receiving the permission of a council of 300 citizens who invested in San Giorgio.¹³ Heinrich Sieveking—whose work on San Giorgio remains very important—believed that this rule was extended to all the important decisions of San Giorgio, but this does not seem to be the case.¹⁴ In the majority of the San Giorgio sources, the term used to refer to the whole institution was “Compere,” and over time also “Casa,” but not “Banco” (bank). In the 1437 document, the rule referred only to the function of the bank (“Banco”)—that is, to the movement of money from San Giorgio to the Commune. It seems likely that only when San Giorgio acted as a bank would the 300-person council have had to sign off.

In 1463, a number of regulations changed. Whenever the eight new protettori were appointed, the old ones joined and chose 64 owners of the Compere—respecting the colors of the division between nobles and populares. Of the 64 owners, 32 were appointed by drawing lots. Together, the 32 elected men, without the help of any of San Giorgio’s offices, elected eight new protettori, following the rules of the divisions of colors; the merchants should have invested at least 30 loca and the artisans 15.¹⁵ The nobles were not mentioned. These 1463 regulae (the statutes of Genoa) weakened the influence of the old protettori over the new ones. The old protettori chose the group of 64, but did not participate, as they had previously, in the following phases.

In 1518, the regulations changed again. Nobles were included in the same way as the merchants among the owners of 30 loca; artisans had to have 15.¹⁶ Among the electors, nobles and merchants could vote if they possessed at least 40 loca, while artisans required 20.¹⁷ The same rules also applied to the election of the officials in Corsica, Lunigiana, and the recently acquired territories of Levanto and Ventimiglia.¹⁸

In 1528, a political reform changed the structure of the offices and salaried positions. From then on, Genoese sources use the term “Republic” and not “Commune.” In the previous years the attempts to reform the rules had been numerous, but had not produced any outcome. The political reform produced a whole group of nobles only. Artisans and merchants were not excluded, but became nobles themselves, a reform intended to weaken factional groups—the Adorno and Fregoso families and the Guelphs and Ghibellines. During the initial phases, the ascriptions to the group of nobles were numerous, then much fewer. The political reform did not affect San Giorgio in the initial years; its regulations changed only with the reform of 1568, which led to the publication of new statutes.¹⁹ The 1568 reform both established new regulations and confirmed some of the old ones. Its statutes are complex. They stated that there would be only 32 electors and that they had to own at least 25 loca. The distinctions and divisions between nobles, merchants, and artisans no longer counted, since now there was only one group. Not only relatives of the protettori were ineligible, but also those who had accepted a contract for various taxes (i.e., those who controlled the purchase of salt, one of the most important businesses).²⁰ The reform also specified San Giorgio’s working times, procedures, and so on.

Was San Giorgio a representative institution? This question arises when one compares the offices of the Commune with those of San Giorgio. As will be shown (§ 7.4), some contemporary Genoese observers asked this question in the early years of the sixteenth century. Scholarship has attempted to answer it. According to Jacques Heers, San Giorgio was not representative, since the offices were chosen and not elected.²¹ However, elections did take place, and it is difficult not to consider this system to be at least somewhat representative.

The main difference between the Commune and San Giorgio from the point of view of political representation was that within the Commune all male citizens could vote, while in San Giorgio only male owners of a certain number of loca could vote. The two institutions displayed a different degree of representation: the Commune was more inclusive, San Giorgio less so.

3.3. Genoese Political Instability

“The Casa di San Giorgio of Genoa, established a long time ago, is preserved until now with the same candor of public trust and wonderful privileges even for the same rebels of the Republic [of Genoa].”²² So read the introductory paragraph of a text sent by the Capuchin friar Manfredi da Reggio to the duke of Modena. The text resembles something a modern financial advisor would write an investor: the friar was describing San Giorgio’s wealth to the duke and advising him to acquire some of its loca.

The friar mentions the price of the loca, their interest, the system of the pagae—which was connected, he explained, to the gabelle (taxes)—and how one could exchange loca and pagae. The reference to the privileges of the rebels who owned loca and pagae is an important point. What the friar called publica fides, public trust, can be translated as accountability—still an important characteristic of financial institutions today. The friar was making clear that the more a financial institution could preserve its owners’ trust, the more it could become rich selling shares.

Even as San Giorgio had acquired political influence, it tried to remain separate from the factional dynamics in Genoa. This is why the friar explained that San Giorgio protected rebels’ privileges. Genoa was not the only city on the Italian peninsula to protect the rights of investors, and this didn’t just happen in the seventeenth century. From the 1440s on, the Florentine government assured investors that it would not confiscate any loca of the Monte (the Florentine public debt), not even from those who committed crimes.²³ Over time, however, these regulations changed. In 1432, for instance, officials received the power to confiscate or seize—with a tax of 10%—the shares of the Monte owned by those guilty of fiscal crimes.²⁴ More than in Genoa, in Florence the shares of public debt were considered obligations on citizens for the Commune rather than investments. The reason those who had committed a crime wanted to maintain shares of the public debt in Florence was that they wanted to preserve their citizenship.²⁵ As seen in the books of contracts of San Giorgio, neither loca nor pagae could be confiscated—not by the Commune, not by San Giorgio—not even for the crime of lèse-majesté. This applied not only to the heads of factions like the Adorno and Fregoso, but also to any person involved in political crimes: their shares would not be confiscated. However, in the long run both Genoese and Florentine political offices stopped respecting these agreements and laws, and institutions in charge of the public debt could not always protect their investors. San Giorgio over time faced a variety of situations. Fifteenth-century rebels were different from those that Manfredi da Reggio had mentioned to the duke of Modena. For that period, we have less information about whether the Commune and San Giorgio protected their investors. Since anyone, not only Genoese citizens, could invest in San Giorgio’s shares, it sometimes happened that the Commune tried to seize the loca of an external investor for political reasons. Even though this process did not involve Genoese citizens, it is interesting to examine at least one case to understand how San Giorgio put its interests over those of the Commune.

In 1436, the loca of the Milanese were confiscated and later used to pay a new tax, the Quinta salsa.²⁶ In 1448, during the dogeship of Giano Fregoso, the Commune confiscated the loca and pagae of the citizens of Asti as a reprisal for the war of the previous year between Genoa and the marquis of Finale, who was allied with Asti.²⁷ In 1448 during one of the initial meetings of the council of the anziani—with San Giorgio and more than 100 Genoese citizens present—about the confiscation of the loca of Asti’s citizens, the chancellor proposed sharing both the interest and the confiscated loca with the citizens of Genoa.²⁸ Paolo Interiano, a Genoese historian, in the Ristretto delle istorie Genovesi, published in 1551, wrote that this practice went “against the privileges and the reputation of San Giorgio.”²⁹ More specific fifteenth-century sources report the criticisms of several figures close to San Giorgio, who feared that the confiscation would affect investment in San Giorgio. Battista de Goano, a powerful lawyer, tried to prevent the confiscation, arguing that it was impossible to know whether the people of Asti were responsible for the war.³⁰

San Giorgio did not always oppose the Commune’s requests, particularly when a doge used confiscations to oppose his traditional enemies: the opposite faction. Fifteenth-century sources do not report many episodes, but there was an important moment, for example, during the dogeship of Raffaele Adorno. The doge attacked the house of the Fregoso, imprisoning its chief, exiling his relatives, and confiscating their wealth. In February 1443, Raffaele Adorno requested San Giorgio and the Compera of the Mercanzia to consider the loca and pagae of the Fregoso family—including those of all the relatives, nephews, wives, and all the women of the house of Fregoso—sequestered.³¹ A total of 23,210 lire was seized.³² This action required many steps to be approved. The first document is dated in February; later ones—registered in the chancellery of San Giorgio and the Commune—are dated at the end of July. It therefore took five months to find the loca of the Fregoso; some more weeks passed before the loca were registered as confiscated in the registers of the colonne in San Giorgio’s archives. This long delay suggests that San Giorgio opposed the doge and tried to resist the confiscation.

In a city such as Genoa, where external domination had lasted more than half of the century, a financial institution’s good reputation was based on more than its relationship with local factions. San Giorgio needed to maintain a good relationship with external powers like the duke of Milan and the king of France, who dominated Genoa and could attack its privileges at any moment. When an external power took control of Genoa, San Giorgio asked that power to respect its privileges. According to both old and modern scholarship, the fact that the king of France and the duke of Milan always promised to respect such privileges means that San Giorgio was always autonomous. During the fifteenth century and the first three decades of the sixteenth, the French dominated three times (1396–1409, 1499–1512, and 1515–22) and the Milanese twice (1421–35, 1464–77). During these periods, the Commune signed a series of written agreements with the external power, sending emissaries to France or Milan to contract the agreements. Over time, a tradition and certain practices were consolidated. This occurred not only in the face of a phenomenon that arose many times, but also because the French Crown, from 1396 onward, considered Genoa to be a subject city even when the duke of Milan took possession of it, something the Milanese themselves recognized over time. Since external powers always took control of Genoa with the help of important Genoese figures and factions—Genoese nobles or the dogal families of the Adorno and Fregoso who were sometimes allies of the French and sometimes the Milanese—the written pacts and agreements were the result of negotiation.

The pacts between Genoa and the external dominating powers were written during war or invasion. Even though Genoese political powers could not actually stop the arrival and installment of an external power, the pacts show that negotiations took place between the parties—and that San Giorgio had a say. The laws and rights of San Giorgio were recognized in 1458 with a pact of 11 points.³³ During the next French domination in 1499, the king of France, Louis XII, approved not only San Giorgio’s privileges, but also several specific points. He promised to help San Giorgio recover its territories of Sarzana and Sarzanello that had been conquered by the Florentines; stated that whoever was in debt to San Giorgio would not receive any safe conduct; and promised that the inhabitants of the port town of Savona would not receive any privileges that might harm San Giorgio.³⁴ Usually in the fifteenth and the early years of the sixteenth century, the French kings respected San Giorgio’s privileges. In at least one case, however, they did not.

In 1509, the French launched an enquiry in Liguria to identify its main administrative problems, and the following year they proposed several changes and innovations. They stated that new gabelle (taxes) could be levied over the Riviera and that they would take all the profits, thus depriving San Giorgio of its main profits. As has been shown, San Giorgio gave private contractors the right to acquire the gabelle after receiving money in advance; these contractors would later collect monies from citizens all over Liguria, and the territories of San Giorgio. This money was used to pay interest on the loca.

The French plan, if realized, would have weakened the entire financial and fiscal system. The Genoese protested vigorously, and the new system was not introduced.³⁵ A comparison between the French and the Milanese fifteenth-century dominations shows differences in their relationships with San Giorgio. The Milanese administrations were more closely connected to San Giorgio. Not only did the duchy of Milan use San Giorgio more extensively than France, but also there are many references in Milanese sources to San Giorgio. These documents show that the Milanese understood not only the financial mechanisms of San Giorgio, but also its political relevance.

As will be shown in Chapter 7, during Francesco Sforza’s duchy, San Giorgio lent him a huge amount of money. In the following years several memorials appeared in the Milanese chancellery which, as we will see, recorded some of the first criticisms against San Giorgio. We do not know whether the dukes of Milan took the advice of these memorials, but the fact that they requested them and that they were preserved in the chancellery’s archives show that the Milanese were aware of the mechanisms regulating San Giorgio. Furthermore, the analyses of the Milanese ambassadors contain many references to San Giorgio’s power vis-à-vis the Commune of Genoa. During the war between Florence and San Giorgio for the dominion of Sarzana in Lunigiana (northern Tuscany) at the end of the 1480s, the Sforza archives show that many letters contained information on San Giorgio’s involvement in the control of the territory and thus in its military power. In these Milanese papers is one of the very rare references to the possibility that San Giorgio could conquer Genoa’s entire dominion.

3.4. Interest Rate and Political Transformations

Did the investment in public debt correlate to political changes and if so, how? Is it possible to measure this phenomenon? The subject has been discussed by scholars including Jacques Heers, David Stasavage, and Michele Fratianni.³⁶ Heers’s and Stasavage’s works provide specific sets of financial data and hypotheses correlating them to political trends; the first studied the middle of the fifteenth century only, while Stasavage has data for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I will discuss their works, provide new evidence that relates to this discussion, offer a critique, and make a proposal.

Stasavage looked at three series of data on the interest rate on San Giorgio’s loca: that collected by John Dale for the period 1340–1407, by Jacques Heers for 1445–66, and by Carlo Cipolla for 1522–1625.³⁷ Carlo Cipolla makes the interest rate in early modern Genoa equal to the discount rate of the pagae.³⁸ These numbers are quite difficult to find, since they are related to the real transactions of pagae, those exchanged by people in the secondary market, and that, as we have seen, is related to usury matters and therefore scarcely annotated in San Giorgio’s ledgers (as shown here, § 2.1.2. The Pagae).

Looking at the fifteenth century and building on Heers’s work, Stasavage maintains, “This was a period when noble and popular revolts continued to occur with high frequency. Heers (1961:160–161) suggests that during this period the market shares of the Casa was heavily influenced by the occurrence of these revolts.”³⁹ On the later period, Stasavage maintains:

Nonetheless, if we do use this data to investigate change in Genoa over time we conclude that interest rates were lower after the establishment of the Casa di San Giorgio than before. But the sharpest drop in Genoese interest rates appears to have occurred only after the establishment of the Andrea Doria Republic in 1528. It was only after this point that we have a clear indication that the Genoese republic was able to borrow at a lower rate of interest than the city of Barcelona.⁴⁰

Stasavage sees the drop of the interest rate as a sign of political stabilization: “The more oligarchic the Republic became, the better its access to credit.”⁴¹ The main problem with Stasavage’s view is that Jacques Heers’s interpretation of political changes is much more nuanced than Stasavage indicates. First, Heers didn’t focus on the interest rate, but on the value of the shares, the loca, because, as he clearly stated, their value was much more closely connected to the external political events affecting Genoese political life, while trade in pagae—and therefore interest rates—depended on local trade dynamics.⁴² Pagae were exchanged only locally by certain specific categories of artisans and a few merchants. Second, Heers didn’t focus generically on “noble and popular revolts”—he looked at the relationship between the signory of Genoa and external powers, and analyzed factional troubles.

When Charles VII took the signory of Genoa in 1458, the value of loca rose; in 1461 during the revolt of local faction member Paolo Fregoso against the French, the value dropped, rising again in 1464 at the beginning of the dominion of Genoa by the Milanese Francesco Sforza. During three other revolts against an external power, the value dropped again: when the Genoese rebelled against Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1473–74) and when Girolamo Gentile (1476) and Obietto Fieschi (1477) rebelled.⁴³ It is likely that investors perceived the periods of external domination as potentially more stable than the periods when locals like the Adorno and Fregoso families held power. Some large external events—such as the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453—also led to a drop in the value of the loca.

The value of the loca was so connected to political situations that even contemporary Genoese historians used it to explain political conflicts. In 1506, a year-long revolt began as a conflict of the populares, like the Sauli family, against the nobles. After a few months, the artisans took power and the rebellion grew more radical. A Genoese historian, Giovanni Salvago, wrote in the following years that the revolt had started because the Sauli wanted to speculate on the price of San Giorgio’s loca. According to Salvago, when the revolt started the loca’s value dropped; then the merchants bought most of them to sell them at a higher price later on.⁴⁴

Other events in the period 1513–22 show a relationship between the price of the loca and political events. Studying these moments lets us focus on specific case studies related to the behavior of historical figures such as Ottaviano Fregoso. From 1513 to 1515, Ottaviano was doge of Genoa during a political crisis; in 1515, he gave the signory of the city to the king of France and became governor. As usually happened during external dominations, the value of the loca then increased. Before handing over Genoa to the king of France, Ottaviano personally acquired more loca; after 1515, it was ten-fold the previous amount (Graphic 3.1). It is likely that Ottaviano was fully aware that periods of external domination saw the loca’s value increase and for this reason he invested in loca before giving Genoa to the king of France.

Stasavage’s conclusion, that after the arrival of Andrea Doria in Genoa the interest rate dropped consistently, might correlate to the stability of the Genoese oligarchy and political system after that moment. But it might be also a tautology: we already know that Andrea Doria stabilized the Republic and that his rule was more stable than the previous eras. Why and how should the trend of the interest rate relate to political events in early modern Genoa? If Heers’s observation that it is the value of the loca and not that of the interest rate (the discount of pagae) that is connected to external dynamics in the fifteenth century, why shouldn’t the same be true later on? It is true that late fifteenth-century and—as my research has shown, pre-1530s—dynamics are quite different from later periods when Genoa didn’t experience external dominion and the Adorno and Fregoso factions lost their power. However, a drop in the value of the interest rate still has to be connected to a specific political trend. Further analyses could demonstrate that in the long run the interest rate is a good indicator of Genoese history, but also that the best way to analyze specific periods is to use the value of the loca. This analysis, rather than one using the interest rate, could be applied to late-sixteenth-century Genoa as well.

Graphic 3.1 Ottaviano Fregoso’s loca (1514–24)⁴⁵

3.5. Factions

During the early years of the Italian Wars, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, San Giorgio played a role in Genoa’s increasing political instability. During these years, at least one Genoese observer accused San Giorgio of financing exiled individuals who wished to return to Genoa to overthrow the current regime. How exiles were financed not only in Genoa but also in other cities on the Italian peninsula remains unexplored in current scholarship.⁴⁶

It is interesting to consider some case studies connected to the biography of Ottaviano Fregoso, his exile, and San Giorgio’s role. In 1513 Ottaviano, then doge, issued a law punishing those who loaned money to exiles to overthrow the dogeship. His most dangerous enemies were the Adorno, but the law was intended to prevent attacks from members of his own family, like Cesare Fregoso, as well. The introductory paragraph to the law stated that with the Italian Wars, many Genoese exiles had offered the signory of Genoa to external powers hoping to gain the dogeship, and that they had accompanied these offers with promises of loans.⁴⁷

There were many external dominations of Genoa in the fifteenth century, some of which occurred with the help of the Adorno and Fregoso factions. The 1513 law, however, stated that during the Italian Wars there had been more offers of Genoa to external signories. It is possible that this was rhetorical or simply the perception of whoever drafted the law. It is also possible that such offers really did increase during that time. We don’t know, because there are no systematic studies on this topic, but in some cases the offers of local factions played an important role. Around 1512–13, Giano Fregoso offered 12,000 ducats to the Swiss; the Adorno offered 90,000 ducats to the king of France; and Ottaviano Fregoso paid 80,000 ducats to the Spanish king.⁴⁸

Analyzing the practice of offering the signory to external powers, Bartolomeo Senarega, a Genoese chronicler, wrote that San Giorgio played an important role. He reported that in the early sixteenth century, a number of citizens requested a loan from San Giorgio that they planned to use to reconquer Genoa. Senarega maintained that since the direct taxation (avaria) had been abolished in 1490, whenever one of the powerful exiles who aimed to take power in Genoa requested money from San Giorgio, he did not need the same level of consensus someone in his position would have faced in the past. As noted earlier, with the abolition of the avaria, San Giorgio provided 66% of the money that the Commune used to receive from direct taxation. Prior to that, if a powerful leader had returned to Genoa and asked the citizens to pay him the money he had expended in reconquering the city through direct taxation, it would have been hard for him to achieve the needed agreement from the Commune. Asking San Giorgio for the money was much easier. Bartolomeo Senarega concluded his discourse on this point with these words: “If the money had not been found through San Giorgio, maybe there would not be so many novelties.”⁴⁹ By “novelties,” he meant changes in government, particularly external dominations. Factions in Genoa promised money to external powers such as the king of France or Spain—who could provide them with an army—and if they succeeded in conquering Genoa, they used San Giorgio’s money to pay their allies. It is highly probable that this passage of Senarega’s chronicle was not an idle criticism of the abolition of direct taxation, but an honest belief that San Giorgio was implicated in putting Genoa in the hands of external powers. A telling detail may confirm San Giorgio’s involvement in such processes: Ottaviano Fregoso’s 1513 law required San Giorgio’s approval to put an end to the ceding of the signory of Genoa.⁵⁰

Bartolomeo Senarega was reacting to Ottaviano Fregoso, but his analysis can be extended to the whole period 1400–1500. Even before 1490—that is, before the end of direct taxation—San Giorgio was often involved in political transformations and was affected by the role of the factions in the government and the external signories.

In order to explain how the exiles worked, it is important to consider San Giorgio’s role, and, more generally, the role of financial dynamics. In Genoa, the existence of an institution such as San Giorgio—politically stable and a competitor of the Commune, which was made unstable by the factions—explains some of the dynamics of political exclusion. It explains the role of exiled factions outside Genoa, their family and political relationships, and the strategies they used to take power with the help of external powers. It is possible that there was a causal link between a stable financial system (San Giorgio) and a weak political institution (the Commune). It is also possible that when San Giorgio’s influence increased, the Commune progressively lost power and the factions tried to gain more. These attempts may have reinforced San Giorgio’s power. From the middle of the fifteenth century, when San Giorgio acquired territories, its relationship with the factional groups changed. The factions exercised strong power over some of the territories, and San Giorgio thus tried to eliminate them. This conflict is evident with the Fregoso in Lunigiana (northern Tuscany).⁵¹

3.6. Land and Sea

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, San Giorgio was depicted as the organization entrusted with the city’s wealth, its very heart. Its financial resources maintained the wealth required for works of charity supporting the poor, orphans, and widows. This idea circulated outside Genoa and was even mentioned in the papal bull of 1456.⁵² As will be shown, this bull granted San Giorgio the privilege to conduct a financial operation that was considered usury so it could maintain its territories in the Black Sea. During the early sixteenth century, this concept appeared again when the Genoese defended San Giorgio’s rights against the king of France, who—as noted—wanted to retain the gains of the gabelle. The Genoese again maintained that San Giorgio was the city’s soul, adding that if the soul were corrupted, the whole body would disintegrate.⁵³

The idea of the public debt as the heart of the civitas had a long tradition, which Giacomo Todeschini has recently analyzed in depth, showing that at the beginning of the fifteenth century theologians such as Francesco da Empoli, Domenico Pantaleoni, and Lorenzo de’ Ridolfi established a link between the wealth of families and the public good or the state.⁵⁴

Ottaviano Fregoso revitalized this metaphor of the public debt as the heart of the city during the early sixteenth century, using it particularly effectively in 1515 and 1522. He conquered Genoa in 1513 with the help of the Aragonese and became doge. As mentioned, in 1515 he gave Genoa to the king of France and became governor so he would benefit from his investments in the public debt. Before the move to French signory, the Florentines accused Ottaviano of dirty dealing. In his letter defending himself, he argued that Genoa had to follow different politics from those of other cities because its wealth was different. He wrote, “we have to arm many ships and large vessels, and we need to go around the far seas where we trade our goods.”⁵⁵ The letter went on to say that the trade over the sea was the “form of our life,” just as territorial possessions and fields were for Lombardy.⁵⁶

A few years later, in 1522, Genoa was once again in the hands of the French, with Ottaviano Fregoso ruling as governor. During the conflict between the French and the Holy Roman Empire, Genoa was surrounded by imperial troops threatening to plunder the city. Ottaviano wrote to the king of France pleading for military help. The text was similar to the 1515 letter to the Florentines, but with a more refined concept of Genoa’s wealth. Ottaviano maintained, as he had done earlier, that “their [the Genoese’] life was different” from that of other cities, but added that most of the Genoese wealth consisted of the Casa di San Giorgio, which helped the poor, widows, religious hospitals, and other pious institutions.⁵⁷ Ottaviano stated that the French king had to protect Genoa, because its wealth was fluid and fragile.

This wealth, he added, was “mobile” and thus different from that based on territorial possessions like those of Milan.⁵⁸ San Giorgio symbolized the opposition between land and sea, between the trade of the Genoese on the far seas and Lombardy’s wealth based on territorial possessions. However, as we will see, Genoese financial power subsequently took possession of land.

Notes

1. Edoardo Grendi, “Profilo storico degli alberghi genovesi,” Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome 87 (1975): 241–302.

2. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, without pagination [but 666], analyzed the data for seven popular families and seven noble ones between 1440 and 1475. Today, publications such as the online inventory of the archive of San Giorgio permit us to count the offices held by many families: 4 Adorno, 16 Cattaneo, 7 Centurione, 9 Cicala, 11 de Amigdala, 46 Doria, 11 Fieschi, 13 de Fornari, 8 Goano, 25 Grimaldi, 25 de Marini, 12 de Negro, 10 de Negroni, 16 Vivaldi, 27 Giustiniani, 17 Lercari, 44 Lomellini, 13 Maruffo, 4 Pallavicino, 3 Piccamiglio, 44 Spinola, 23 Sauli, 21 Salvago. These data are taken from www.lacasadisangiorgio.eu/main.php?do=repertori_t1 (accessed February 11, 2022).

3. Antiquarians have compiled various incomplete genealogical trees in past centuries. See Massimo Angelini, “La cultura genealogica in area ligure nel XVIII secolo: Introduzione ai repertori di famiglie,” Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria 35, 1 (1995): 189–212.

4. Data, www.lacasadisangiorgio.eu/main.php?do=repertori_t1 (accessed February 11, 2022) and ASCG, Manoscritti, Molfino, 442.

5. Carlo Bitossi, “Il governo della Repubblica e della Casa di San Giorgio: I ceti dirigenti dopo la riforma costituzionale del 1576,” in La Casa di San Giorgio: Il Potere Del Credito, Atti Del Convegno, Genova, 11 e 12 Novembre 2004, ed. Giuseppe Felloni (Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 2006), 63–73, 91–107.

6. Sieveking mentioned the regulations but not the source, which is Membranacei, XIV, fol. 1r–2v.

7. Bitossi, “Il governo della Repubblica e della Casa di San Giorgio.”

8. I thank Rodolfo Savelli for all the following material and research, which is partially unpublished. ASG, Primi cancellieri di S. Giorgio 93 mentions that in the territories in the east, rules about Guelph and Ghibellines were respected. See also ASG, Primi cancellieri di S. Giorgio 86; and Amedeo Vigna, Codice diplomatico delle colonie tauro liguri, ASL VI (1868), 895, 897. As for the protettori and their rules, see ASG, Ms membranacei XXV, fol. 29v, Regulae of San Giorgio.

9. ASG, Membranacei XIV, fol. 2v.

10. ASG, Membranacei XIV, fol. 2v.

11. Sieveking, “Studio sulle finanze genovesi,” 23.

12. Sieveking, “Studio sulle finanze genovesi,” vol. 2: 22.

13. ASG, Membranacei, VII, fol. 116v. 10 dicembre 1437. Anche in Membranacei XIV, fol. 51v, quoted by Sieveking, “Studio sulle finanze genovesi,” vol. 2: 22, note.

14. Sieveking, “Studio sulle finanze genovesi,” vol. 2: 22 and note. Genueser Finanzwesen, vol. 2: 17. Here the case of the bank is merely an example. See ASG, Membranacei, XIV, fol. 51v.

15. ASG, Membranacei XIV, fol. 132v, 1463, December 13.

16. ASG, Membranacei XXV, fol. 34v.

17. ASG, Membranacei XXV, fol. 35v for the other electoral regulations, see the following pages.

18. ASG, Membranacei XXV, fol. 38r–43r.

19. Sulla riforma del 1568 see Giuseppe Felloni (ed.), Amministrazione ed etica nella Casa di San Giorgio (1407–1805): lo statuto del 1568 (Firenze: Olschki, 2014).

20. Felloni, Amministrazione ed etica, 14.

21. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 119.

22. ASMo, Carteggi con principi esteri, Genova, Informazione del cappuccino Manfredi da Reggio (1624). Here the Capuchin friar was probably referring to the factions expelled by the doges during the fifteenth century.

23. Molho, Florentine Public Finances, 106.

24. Molho, Florentine Public Finances, 106–107.

25. See the case of the Alberti in Florence, Susannah Foster Baxendale, “The Alberti Family in and out of Florence 1401–1428,” Renaissance Quarterly 44, 4 (1991): 720–756, at 734 and notes.

26. On the confiscation of the loca of the Milanese, see Giustina Olgiati, Genova, porta del mondo: la città medievale e i suoi habitatores (Genova: Brigati, 2011), 152; the documentary reference is in ASG, AS 519, fol. 18v–19r. References to the confiscation of the Milanese loca of are also found in the supplications of people of other jurisdictions who aimed to dispose of their pagae and loca. Andrea fu Giovanni dei Marchesi di Malaspina di Godiasco, supplication of November 16, 1442, 11 loca; Giambattista Ceva of Asti, supplication of December 3 1442, 16 loca. Both references are in ASG, AS 3033.

27. ASG, AS 518, fol. 428v. Compare, however, Alfonso Assini, Documenti genovesi su Asti e il Monferrato: i registri “Astensium” dell’archivio del Banco di San Giorgio, Il Monferrato. Crocevia politico, economico e culturale tra Mediterraneo e Europa. Atti del convegno internazionale, Ponzone, 9–12 giugno 1998, ed. Gigliola Soldi Rondinini (Biella: Ponzone, 2000), 277–298, at 283 and note. Assini thinks that in this case the loca and pagae of the people of Asti were not confiscated.

28. Assini, Documenti genovesi su Asti e il Monferrato, 280, note 8. Council of July 3, 1448.

29. Paolo Interiano, Ristretto delle Historie Genovesi (Lucca: Busdrago, 1551), fol. 191v: “Et perché così allhora come in altri tempi Astesani, Carretini e Marchesi di Ceva s’erano in aiuto dei nemici della Repubblica dimostrati, parve all’universale di ritener loro le portioni c’haveano nelle compere di San Giorgio, avvenga che paresse contra i privilegi e reputationi di quel Magistrato.”

30. ASG, AS 546, fol. 51r.

31. “Fratelli, nipoti, consanguinei e di tutte le altre e stesse mogli, sorelle, figlie e altre mogli,” ASG, AS 546, fol. 51r.

32. ASG, AS 519 fol. 102v–103v. These were their loca in San Giorgio: Giano 862 lire 11 soldi and 6 denari; Battistina 2,500; Orietta 2,500; Giano 255; Pietro 100; Ginevrina, Ludovico’s wife, 6,000; Violantina, Giano’s wife, various deposits from 390, 90, 70, and 138 lire. The sums invested in the Compera of Mercanzia, which gave 6% yearly, were very high: Violantina had 2,500 lire; Ginevrina 8,555; and Caterina, Bartolomeo’s wife, 158 and 5 soldi (Compera of Mercanzia: Marengo, Manfroni, Pessagno, Il Banco di San Giorgio, 107, which is 0.5%. A yearly interest of 6% was accrued in 1445).

33. Fabien Lévy, La monarchie et la commune: Les relations entre Gênes et la France, 1396–1512 (Rome: École française de Rome, 2014), 89.

34. Lévy, La monarchie et la commune, 281. See also Carlo Taviani, Superba discordia: Guerra, rivolta e pacificazione nella Genova di primo Cinquecento (Rome: Viella, 2011).

35. Lévy, La monarchie et la commune, 240–243.

36. David Stasavage, States of Credit: Size, Power, and the Development of European Polities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011); Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle; Michele Fratianni, “Government Debt, Reputation and Creditors’ Protections: The Tale of San Giorgio,” Review of Finance 10, 4 (2006): 487–506.

37. Stasavage, States of Credit, 123.

38. Cipolla, “Note sulla storia del saggio di interesse,” 255–274. Even if Heers relies on Cipolla for this point, he maintains that we need to know: “le taux nominal, la valeur du titre, celle de la lire “de paghe.” Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 172.

39. Stasavage, States of Credit, 123.

40. Stasavage, States of Credit, 24.

41. Stasavage, States of Credit, 118.

42. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 159–160.

43. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 160–161.

44. Salvago, Historie di Genova, Archivio Doria, Facoltà di economia e commercio di Genova, box 417, n. 1912, c.

45. Sources: ASG, Banco di San Giorgio, 590, 598, 610, 617, 625, 634.

46. For Florence, see Götz-Rüdiger Tewes, Kampf um Florenz—Die Medici im Exil (1494–1512) (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2011).

47. ASG, Archivio Segreto, 1649, Politicorum, fol. 68r: “post adventum in Ittaliam externarum nationum inductum more fuisse … ut qui ducatui gubernacionum seu regiminem aspirant ad principes nationum et duces exercitum recurrunt et promissis ingentibus peccuniarum curant ab eis impetrare.”

48. Mentioned by the same Bartolomeo Senarega, “De Rebus Genuensibus Commentaria ab anno 1488 usque ad annum 1514,” in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores², ed. Emilio Pandiani, vol. 24, part 8, fasc. 1 (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1929), 165.

49. Senarega, “De Rebus Genuensibus Commentaria ab anno 1488 usque ad annum 1514,” 165: “Quod si tanta pecuniae summa … depromi debuisset, forsitan tantae novitates sequutae non essent, quibus inveniendae pecuniae facilitas a Comperis [San Giorgio] materiam praebuit.”

50. ASG, Archivio Segreto, 1649, Politicorum, fol. 673v–74r.

51. See here Part II § 6.2.

52. Not to help San Giorgio would have harmed widows, orphans, and religious men: “magnum detrimentum ecclesiarum et ecclesiasticarum etiam regularium personarum, pupillorum, viduarum et aliorum quorum substantia in dictis locis pro moaiori parte locata est,” Julius Kirshner, “The Moral Problem of Discounting Genoese Paghe, 1450–1550,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 47 (1977): 109–167, 160.

53. “Le compere e la casa de san Giorgio sono veramenti l’anima de questa cita e alterata la anima totum corpus desolvitur.” Quoted by Lévy, La monarchie et la commune, 241.

54. Giacomo Todeschini, La banca e il ghetto: Una storia italiana (secoli XIV–XVI) (Laterza: Roma-Bari, 2016), 103–128, and more specifically 106–107.

55. ASF, MAP, Filza XCVIII, n. 541, fol. 543.

56. ASF, MAP, Filza XCVIII, n. 541, fol. 543.

57. “Restariamo ancho in tal caxo privati de li redditi nostri, zoè di la caza di Sancto Georgio ne la quale consistono e de li qualle tanti citadini e povere vidue religiosi hospitali et altri loci pii si governano et che l’essere et il vivere nostro è alieno da le altre cità, quale se ben perdono il mobile loro li restano li fundi e le possessione che non gli possono mancar,” ASG, AS 2707C, Instruction to Cattaneo Lomellino, quoted by Arturo Pacini, “I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’: La riforma del 1528,” Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria 30, 1 (1990): 92.

58. Pacini, “I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’,” 92.