Genoa is a city of merchant-palaces.

Whether any of the other cities of Italy have in any degree ceased to merit the traditional epithets which so many successive generations assigned to themhow far Genoa is still la Superba, Bologna la Grassa, Padua la Dotta, Lucca la IndustriosaI cannot say.

Genoa, Venice herself, are hardly real exceptions; they were indeed commercial cities, but they were ruling cities also, and, as ruling cities, they reared monuments which could hardly pass away.

Genoa became 'Spain's water-gate to Italy....

From that time Genoa, transferring her activity to the Levant, became the rival of Venice, The fleets of the two cities in 1298 met near Cyprus in an encounter, said to be accidental, that began 'a terrible war which for seven years stained the Mediterranean with blood and consumed immense wealth.'