Genoa
Medieval drawing of the city of Genoa (1493)
Around 900 AD, the Holy Roman Empire began to lose control of Italy, and Genoa was among the Italian cities that got their independence about this time. Genoa became one of the first medieval cities where citizens won some political rights. Genoa's independence started badly when Genoa was burned and sacked by a Fatimid fleet in 934 AD. But the people of Genoa quickly rebuilt the town. Soon Genoa was trading with the Fatimids and getting rich buying silk and selling it to European traders. By the 1100s Genoa had one of the largest navies in the Mediterranean Sea. Soon Genoa used those ships to conquer nearby towns, and through the Middle Ages Genoa controlled Sardinia, Corsica, and a number of other places as well as the area around Genoa itself. During the early Crusades, Genoa also got some land around Jerusalem, in Greece, in Sicily, and in North Africa.
In theory, Genoa remained inside the Holy Roman Empire, and the Christian bishop ruled the town. Really, the men of Genoa elected two consuls every year to run the city, as in ancient Rome. As in the Roman Republic, most political power soon fell into the hands of a few powerful families. Although the men did not let women vote, women in the leading families could get some political power anyway.
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Genoa did very well in the 1200s thanks to an alliance with the Byzantines. Together Genoa and the Byzantines defeated Pisa and Venice, and dominated the Mediterranean. But when the bubonic plague - the Black Death - reached Genoa in 1347, many people died, and Genoa became much weaker. In the late 1300s Genoa lost her overseas land to the Ottoman Empire and other states, and eventually came under the control of the city of Milan. Genoa's great sailors began to look elsewhere for their fortunes - one of these was Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa who sailed to North America from Spain in 1492.
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