Contending Representations III: Questioning Republicanism in Early Modern Genoa

Several studies have been devoted to the flowering of the republic of Genoa during the so-called ‘siglo de los Genoveses’, when Genoa became the hub of European trade and an important center of artistic and literary production. Yet, little attention has been granted to the political and cultural crisis that followed, starting in 1559 and culminating in 1684, when the French bombed Genoa. Addressing this chronological gap, the volume explores how the image of the Genoese Republic was shaped, exploited, or contested in the long seventeenth century. How did Genoese politicians and men of letters represent their homeland? How was Genoa represented in Spain or in the Low Countries? How was its political system conceived by Italian and foreign political writers, and how did the prevailing absolutist model influence such ideas? In order to answer these questions, the volume gathers contributions from art historians, literary scholars, political and cultural historians, thus adopting a comparative, multidisciplinary approach that has never been applied to the matter before.

I. Early Modern Genoa in Context (1528-1700)

1. Enrico Zucchi and Alessandro Metlica, Piecing the Puzzle: Liberty, Identity, and Crisis in the Republic of Genoa
2. Manuel Herrero Sanchez, The Representation of Genoa in a Monarchy of Urban Republics: Between the Integration of Private Genoese and the Limits of the Model of Full Sovereignty
3. Matthias Schnettger, ‘Camera et civitas nostra imperialis’: The Republic of Genoa in the Imperial Perspective

II. The Age of Liberty (1528-1620)

4. Laura Stagno, The Gift of Concord and Freedom: Images of Andrea Doria in Late Sixteenth-Century Art
5. Wouter Kreuze, Perspectives on a Republic: The Genoese crisis of 1575 in Italian avvisi
6. Benoît Maréchaux, Contending Republicanisms: Pamphlets, Liberty, and Political Uses of the Past in Genoa, Venice, and Rome at the Time of the Interdict (1606-1607)
7. Fiorenzo Toso, ‘Versci, morte dro tempo’: Civil Commitment and Celebratory Rhetoric in Genoese Literature in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

III. The Negotiation of Genoese Identity (1620-1660)

8. Valentina Borniotto, Personifications of the Republic in Genoa. Before and After Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia
9. Sara Rulli, Continuity and Renewal of the City Image: the Enhancement and Strengthening of Public Architecture and Infrastructure as an Instrument for Political Communication
10. George L. Gorse, A ‘Royal Republic’: The Virgin Mary as ‘Queen of Genoa’ in 1637
11. Simona Morando, ‘Vera pace godeste in mezzo all’armi’: the Commitment of Theatre and Literature in the Latter Half of the Seventeenth Century
12. Giorgio Tosco, ‘I più savij politichi di tutte le nazioni del mondo’: the Political Use of the Dutch Model in Seventeenth-Century Genoa

IV. The Age of Crisis (1660-1700)

13. Luana Salvarani, ‘Nelle varietà proprie della Città nostra’: Giovan Francesco Spinola’s Instruttione famigliare Between Genoese Identity and the Renaissance Pedagogical Tradition
14. Emilio Pérez Blanco, Neutrality in Question: Genoa, the Embassy of Spain and the Consequences of 1684
15. Michael Paul Martoccio, Touring ‘the Peru of Italy:’ the Bank of Saint George and the Endurance of the Genoese Republic in the English, French, and German Press