Cathedral Cities of Italy Part 5

The long-drawn-out feuds of the Lambertazzi and Gieremei families, and later on those between the great Visconti and Bentivoglio, kept the Bolognese in a perpetual state of faction fights, which lasted until the warlike Pontiff Julius II. annexed the city to the States of the Church.

To go back to its earliest days, we learn that the Etruscan king, Felsina, founded a city in 984 B.C. where Bologna now stands. He gave it his own name, and made it the chief of his twelve Etruscan cities.

Bologna can thus, with legitimate pride, point to a history approaching three thousand years. We find it to-day a typical modern place, with just enough of the middle ages left to make it one of the most desirable of all North Italian cities. It possesses hardly a street which is not arcaded; and the thought arises: "How admirably adapted for street fighting were these sheltered walks in the days when one half of the town was at strife with the other!" In the oldest parts of the city the streets are tortuous and narrow. Arcades in such streets would be just the very best cover for raiders to steal along at night; and such must have been the terror of the inhabitants during centuries of discord that there is scarcely a house which has any windows opening into the arcades, and those that do are heavily barred. Walking through these streets, silent witnesses of b.l.o.o.d.y feuds and severe fights, one cannot suppress the feeling that the old quarters of Bologna are full of mystery, and it does not require much imagination to see the Visconti party creeping along in the shadowed ways for an attack on their hereditary foes, the Bentivoglio.

So much for the thoughts awakened by Bologna's narrow thoroughfares.

Its chief open square is the Piazza Maggiore, as fine an old Italian square as can be found anywhere. The celebrated Fontana de Nettuno is in the centre. A nude bronze statue of the G.o.d by Giovanni da Bologna stands eight feet high, in a somewhat repellent att.i.tude, above the pedestal and basin. It is always the centre of a lounging crowd which throngs the square throughout the day. On the west side of the Piazza is the Palazzo Pubblico, with a facade that still retains, despite restoration, traces of eight elegant pointed windows. A figure of the Virgin in terra-cotta, once gilded, stands under a good canopy high up on the empty s.p.a.ce of the great wall of the facade. These comparatively empty wall s.p.a.ces are a feature of Bolognese architecture of the thirteenth century. Pierced by a few windows, they give a great idea of solidity and strength; and though one finds the same character in the palaces of Tuscan cities, it is not so prominent there as in the big buildings of Bologna. An immense entrance gateway opens into a courtyard, and from this a very fine staircase by Bramante leads up to the interior. In a smaller court beyond is a very beautiful cistern by Terribilia. The Hall of Hercules, so called from the colossal statue by Alfonso Lombardo, vies with the Sala Farnese in splendour. Up to the year 1848 the palace was the residence of the Legate and the Senator.

The lower portion is now the chief post office of the city.

On the north side of the Piazza is the Palazzo del Podesta. It is a building that was begun at the commencement of the thirteenth century, but not until the year 1485 was the facade erected. Of magnificent proportions, it is chiefly famous as the prison of King Enzio. The great saloon is still called the Sala del Re Enzio, and among other vicissitudes was at one time a theatre, and at another the court in which the national game of _pallone_ was played. A solid-looking and lofty tower, the Torrazzo dell' Aringo, rises at one end of the facade above the arcades. On the piers which carry the arches of these may still be seen the huge wrought-iron brackets, the rings, and the sockets for supporting banner poles and holding lighted torches.

Along the east side of this part of the Piazza which is =L=-shaped, is the Portico de' Banchi, a continuous arcade, extending beyond the limits of the square the whole length of Bologna's great church. This, the church that the Bolognese in their pride intended should be the largest in Italy, has not been completed beyond the commencement of the transepts.

The nave and aisles alone are finished; they are three hundred and eighty-four feet long, and the width, including the chapels, measures one hundred and fifty. The building is proportionately high, and, as will be seen in the ill.u.s.tration, is very s.p.a.cious. It was commenced in 1390 and dedicated to S. Petronio. The architect, Antonio Vincenzi, was one of the celebrated _Riformati_, and went as amba.s.sador to the Venetian Republic in 1396.

The Piazza Maggiore slopes downwards from the south. S. Petronio is situated at its southern end, and orientates south by west. The facade therefore faces north-east, and for the construction of a level floor the great church is placed at this end some dozen steps above the sloping Piazza. In the museum attached to S. Petronio there may be seen the original designs, elevations, and a model of the finished structure.

Had funds permitted, this facade, placed so well, and with such magnificent buildings surrounding it, would have been one of the best Italian attempts to realise a Gothic church. As it is, it is a grand scheme unfulfilled.

The lower portion of the facade is extremely good, the three canopied doorways being pure Italian Gothic. They are adorned with bas-reliefs which represent different scriptural events from the Creation onwards.

Tribolo, an intimate friend of Benvenuto Cellini, was responsible for the beautiful angels and sibyls round the arch of that on the left hand. The fine bas-relief of the Resurrection in the lunette, where Christ is seen among sleeping soldiers, is by Alfonso Lombardi. The central portal is considered the masterpiece of Jacopo della Quercia, who was not overpaid by the three thousand golden florins he received for the work, considering that it took him twelve years to complete. His n.o.ble figure of the Almighty, surrounded by thirty-two patriarchs and prophets, is extremely fine. The right-hand doorway is another example of Tribolo's purity of style. The brickwork of the exterior is covered, round the whole church at the base, by a very fine base-table of white marble with good mouldings. In the model the entire brick surface is hidden by the same material. The b.u.t.tresses are good, and so are the pointed windows of the aisles, some of which, by the way, contain good gla.s.s.

The interior is very lofty and expansive. Twelve immense piers carry the arches of the nave, twenty-four smaller ones those of the aisles. The height of all these may be judged from the ill.u.s.tration, wherein also the peculiar Italian Gothic capital is seen. Milan's great cathedral and S. Anastasia in Verona are other specimens of the same style of capital.

They appear to be stuck on to the columns, of which they seem to form a part, rather than a separate cap for the arches to rest on. One hardly knows how this particular style grew or where it emanated, but it is not unlike the palm-leaf capital of an Egyptian column. The aisles are rather shallow for the width of the nave. The side chapels are shut off from them by good metal grilles or beautiful marble screens. Four very ancient black pillars with crosses engraved stand against four of the aisle piers. They are supposed to have been placed at the gates of old Bologna by S. Petronio himself, and are much venerated by the Bolognese.

On the floor of the church is traced the celebrated meridian line of Gian Domenico Ca.s.sini. Under the immense canopy which stands over the high altar Charles V. was crowned in 1530 by Pope Clement VII. The Emperor had been invited to Italy by the last of the Ducal House of Sforza, and with his coronation commenced the foreign occupation of North Italy.

Bologna's cathedral is dedicated to S. Pietro. It is situated in the Via dell' Indipendenza, but is so wedged in between the high buildings which adjoin it on both sides that it is difficult to find. S. Pietro is a huge barn-like edifice commenced in the bad period of 1605. It is a very ancient foundation with no redeeming architectural features. The most interesting thing it contains is Ludovico Carracci's celebrated "Annunciation." After the scaffolding had been removed on the completion of the work which is over the arch above the high altar, Carracci discovered some bad drawing in one of the figures. He died soon after this--from grief, so the story goes, as the authorities would not permit him to re-erect it at his own cost and remedy the defect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF S. PETRONIO, BOLOGNA]

The church of S. Stefano, or rather the seven different edifices which are thus named, occupies the site of a temple of Isis. It stands below the level of the little Piazza de S. Stefano, and on its exterior wall is one of the open-air pulpits not uncommon in Italy. The first church, called Il Crocifisso, is of the sixteenth century and not interesting.

From a door in the north wall one goes down half a dozen steps into the second church of the Santo Sepolcro. This is a circular building, supposed to have been the old baptistery. Twelve columns, brick and marble alternating, support a good Romanesque gallery under the dome.

The six marble shafts came from the pagan temple. In the centre is a grand altar-pulpit, which has a stairway leading up on either side.

Under the altar is an urn which at one time held the remains of S.

Petronio. On the stone floor a shutter of iron covers the well that possesses miraculous properties, these having been imparted to it by the saint. The church dates from the tenth century. An iron grille in one of the walls shuts off the oldest church of all, a basilica of the fourth century. It is dedicated to SS. Paolo e Pietro. Forty-eight columns with Byzantine and Greek capitals support the brick barrel vault of the nave.

This is dimly lighted by small round clerestory windows. The altar stands in the tribune at the top of much-worn limestone steps. This also has a brick vault. At the end of the narrow aisles are the sarcophagi of S. Agricola and S. Vitalis--Bologna's S. Vitalis. The next church, if it may be so called, is formed by the small court known as the Atrio di Pilato. It has never been touched since the eleventh century, and contains a very ancient font. Down more steps is the church of the Confessio. This old crypt must be a good twenty feet below the level outside. The quadripart.i.te vaulting is borne by thick stunted columns that are barely five feet high, though one is said to be the exact height of Christ. It is very dark, and dates from the tenth century. The sixth church is the pa.s.sage which leads to the seventh and last, that of the Trinity. Four rows of columns with Byzantine and Romanesque capitals support the roof of this square building. In one of the chapels, in a galleried niche, there is an extraordinary life-sized wooden group of the Adoration of the Magi. Mary wears a crown of bra.s.s studded with uncut stones. On the Child's head is a mitre of the same. The expressive faces of the Three Kings, who bring offerings, are extremely nave. The first wears the conical hat of the ancient shepherds of the hills of Venetia that one still comes across in out-of-the-way districts.

The adjoining cloisters of the suppressed Celestine monastery are remarkable in the solidity of the short pillars, not four feet high, which form the lower colonnade. These are in absolute contradistinction to the elegant double shafts of the upper gallery. The brickwork throughout the whole of S. Stefano is very good. Concentric patterns, squares, chequer work where small squares of marble and glazed tiles have been introduced, diamonds, and oblongs are arranged in a perfect harmony of design the like of which one cannot find in Italy. The exterior of S. Sepolcro is, in this respect, unsurpa.s.sed.

Bologna's university is one of the oldest in Italy, and the first in which academical degrees were conferred. It was founded in 1119 by Irnerius. Numerous schools were established in the West after Byzantine authority had faded away. Among the first was that of Bologna, where Pepo began to expound the law in 1075. Irnerius followed him five-and-twenty years later and introduced the Justinian code. His followers became known as Glossatori, a word derived from the Greek ???ssa, originally meaning a _tongue_. The last of these glossators was Accursius, who compiled the _glossae_ known as the "Glossa ordinaria," a work which soon became the acknowledged authority. The visitor who wanders through the city and finds himself in the market-square will there see outside the church of S. Francesco three canopied tombs. The sarcophagi which rest on a platform borne by pillars are those of three Glossatori, and one of them contains the remains of Accursius. The canopies of these tombs are covered with green tiles. S.

Francesco is a fine Gothic church with two elegant _campanili_. It is undergoing extensive restoration, and, though of some architectural interest, does not compare in other ways with that of S. Domenico.

This church, wherein repose the remains of the founder of the Order of Preaching Friars or Dominicans, was begun with the intention of following the prevailing fas.h.i.+on of the day and constructing another Gothic fabric. Except for the pointed windows in some of the chapels, S.

Domenico bears no traces of this intention. The interior of white marble, in a medley of styles in which poor Renaissance predominates, is very cold. The exterior has a very heavy frieze of white marble; the commencement of its outer covering carried no further than this. It is seen in the sketch, which also shows the canopied tomb of the learned jurist, Rolandino Pa.s.sageri, who was selected by the city to frame the reply to the letter in which the Emperor Frederick II.

demanded the release of his illegitimate son Enzio. In the church lie Guido Reni, whose tomb is in the chapel shown with the heavy frieze, and his talented fellow-artist Elisabetta Sirani, King Enzio, Taddeo Pepoli, Captain of the People in 1334, and the great S. Dominick.

[Ill.u.s.tration: S. DOMENICO, BOLOGNA]

Born in Old Castile in 1170, S. Dominick was ordained priest in 1198.

His fiery zeal against "heretics" and his extraordinary preaching powers soon brought him into great prominence. He was instrumental in establis.h.i.+ng courts for trial and punishment of obstinate "heretics."

The commissioners, who were invested with a jurisdiction that gave them powers of torture, and life and death, were known as "Inquisitors," and their conclaves paved the way for the dreaded Inquisition. S. Dominick's tomb is one of the finest in North Italy. It is one of the earliest works that the genius of Niccol Pisano produced, having been completed thirty years before his masterpiece at Pisa was begun. A magnificent iron grille separates the chapel from the nave. On the top rail are four very charming little figures in bronze of saints. The tomb is adorned by bas-reliefs ill.u.s.trating the chief events in the life of the saint.

Below these is a very delicately carved set of smaller ones by Alfonso Lombardi, which form a sort of _predella_, and are nearly three hundred years later. The urn which contains the saint's remains is behind the upper set. A small statue of S. Petronio in front is by Michael Angelo, and the best of the beautiful little angels at the corners claims the same hand as its sculptor. Cherubs at the top of the monument hold two very heavy festoons of flowers, which somewhat mar the fine composition of the whole. From this it is evident that the exuberance of Pisano's youth had yet to learn the reticence which comes with age.

No description of Bologna would be complete without mention of its wonderful towers. The graceful Torre Asinelli rises to a height of three hundred and twenty-one feet, and, although nearly four feet out of the perpendicular, tapers upwards so imperceptibly that the inclination is not noticeable. Close by it stands the Torre Garisenda, built by the two brothers Garisenda. It leans ten feet in one direction and three in another, and rises to a height of one hundred and sixty feet. Although the guide-books tell one it was thus constructed, it has undoubtedly sunk into its position, as the different stages inside slope with the inclination of the tower. These two are not the only towers of Bologna, but, being situated in the centre of the oldest quarters of the city, are those that are best known.

PARMA

Parma is very much like any other of the smaller cities of Italy. It can however boast of a prehistoric lake-dwelling settlement, unearthed in 1864, and a still later, though very early origin as an Etruscan colony.

To-day it is a bright little place pleasantly situated on the broad stream that gave it its name. If it were not, however, for its cathedral, its ancient baptistery, and its inseparable connection with the art of Correggio, there would be but little to interest the stranger or even call for a halt at its railway station. Four bridges span the river Parma, and from each the blue line of the Apennines may be seen stretching away over the tops of the orchards until lost in the distant haze. The old Roman road, the Via aemilia, which we have already seen started out of Rimini, bisects Parma from east to west, and crosses the river by a fine old bridge, the Ponte de Mezzo. This is the only structure of the four which can lay claim to any age. It has a narrow roadway inclining up to the centre with high parapets on either side, and partakes very much of the character of a Roman edifice. Except for a few inscribed slabs there is nothing of any consequence left to remind one that the pleasant little city of to-day was once a flouris.h.i.+ng colony of Imperial Rome. In the Guelph and Ghibelline feuds it espoused the Pope's cause and successfully withstood a siege by Frederick II. In 1341 it came into the hands of the Visconti, Dukes of Milan, and was a.s.sociated with that duchy for two hundred years. Pope Julius II.

incorporated it with the Papal States, and thirty years after this the reigning Pope, Paul III., gave it to his natural son Pietro Luigi Farnese. This family supplied seven dukes to Parma where they reigned until the male line became extinct in the year 1731. The Bourbons came into possession of the duchy through Marie Louise, and with the a.s.sa.s.sination in the public thoroughfare of Duke Charles III., its history may be said to have come to an end.

The cathedral and baptistery, with the ecclesiastical buildings which form the square in which they stand, make a group of much interest. The first named is a very fine example of Romanesque work. It was commenced in 1058, but not consecrated until fifty years later, nor really completed till the middle of the thirteenth century. The facade is however entirely the original design.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CATHEDRAL AND BAPTISTERY, PARMA]

Two rows of arcades traverse its length; the lower is on a level with and carried through the upper portion of the central porch. A third follows the line of the gable under a heavy cornice. The porch is similar to the one ill.u.s.trated of Verona's cathedral. Two colossal lions bear the burden of the double canopies and were the work of Bono da Bisone. The sun is sculptured on the keystone of the arch, and in the soffits the months are ill.u.s.trated by a series of reliefs of agricultural pursuits, as in S. Mark's at Venice. A good many Roman tablets have been used as decoration and for building material along the whole facade. Two other doors, as well as the central portal, give entrance to the church. The only other feature of the exterior worth mention is the beautiful red brick _campanile_ with its green tiled spire.

The first impression one receives of the interior is that of extreme solemnity and great majesty. It never wears off. The high altar, a blaze of silver and gilt, stands well placed eighteen steps above the nave.

The transepts also are thus situated, and there is enough length in the seven bays that separate the aisles from the nave to put the choir well back from the spectator as he enters at the west door. From the high altar the eye instinctively travels upwards to the spandrils in the drum of the dome where part of Correggio's grand frescoes are seen. The fourteen fluted columns of the nave are quadrangular. Seven have Corinthian capitals and seven are Romanesque with traces of Byzantine origin in the figures, beasts and birds which form the volutes. Some of these are peac.o.c.ks with curling outstretched necks; others are the heads and upper limbs of human figures. The triforium gallery has elegant pillars in pairs, that support round arches. The clerestory is placed very high. The vaulting of the nave is peculiar, it is elliptical. The whole of the walls are covered with frescoes by Lattanzio Gambara and Girolamo Mazzuola, who was a pupil of Parmigianino. A frieze is above the capitals of the fluted pilasters that support the arch of the choir and runs on into the transepts. It is symbolical of the strength of the Church. Lions are seen here hunting antelopes, deer, and other animals; that is, the Church is chasing away all evil doers.

The crypt under the choir is architecturally interesting, as it shows in some of the capitals of its thirty-eight columns the evolution from pure Byzantine to Lombardo-Romanesque work. But perhaps it will be the frescoes in the dome that draw visitors to this fine church rather than its architectural features. In the decoration of this Correggio surpa.s.sed himself in his mastery of _chiaroscuro_ and the foreshortening of the human figure. The "a.s.sumption of the Virgin," though very adversely criticised when finished, and now greatly injured by damp and neglect, is still one of the grandest paintings of its sort extant.

Almost adjoining the south-west corner of the cathedral, and built on sloping ground, stands Parma's celebrated baptistery. It was begun in the year 1196, from designs by Benedetto Antelami. The construction was for many years very spasmodic, and wholly ceased when the bloodthirsty Ezzelino da Romana governed North Italy for Frederick II. in the thirteenth century, and forbade the inhabitants to quarry any more marble. At his death it was pushed on, and in the end finished towards the close of that century, a date which accounts for the pointed arches at the top of the interior. It is built of Verona marble, and is an octagon with three arched portals, on which are some very interesting sculptures of Old Testament history. Jacob, out of whom grows a tree in the branches of which are his brothers with Moses at the top, is on one side of the north door. Another tree, with David and Solomon and the Prophets, is a pendant on the other. The south doorway is decorated in a similar style, but the trees are full of all the birds apparently then known. Barn-door fowls, storks, parrots, eagles, ducks, and peac.o.c.ks, &c. &c., find a place in this extraordinary aviary in stone. Signs of the Zodiac form a sort of frieze on the lower portions of the eight sides of the exterior. Four tiers of columns forming open galleries support a continuous architrave, which, whatever the architectural merits, is not artistically a pleasing arrangement. The interior is sixteen-sided. Between each division a long marble shaft is carried from its base on the floor right up to the converging ribs of the pointed vaulting. The whole of the walls and vault are covered with frescoes.

The upper are early, and appear to be almost contemporaneous with the finis.h.i.+ng of the building. The lower bear the names of Niccolo da Reggio and Bartolino da Piacenza, and are of fourteenth-century date. The Life of John the Baptist naturally takes precedence in these interesting examples of mural decoration. The huge font in the centre of the baptistery is cut out of a single block of marble. It has a centre compartment like that already described in S. Giovanni in Fonte, in Verona. The registers of the baptistery go back as far as the year 1459, since when it is known that all the babies born in Parma have been received into the Faith within its walls.

The church of S. Lodovico, also called S. Paolo, was formerly attached to a Benedictine nunnery. Correggio's celebrated series of pagan frescoes cover the walls of the "parlour" of the nunnery. They were executed to the order of the abbess, Giovanna da Piacenza, and are more fitted for a "Trianon" than a convent. Minerva, Juno, Bacchus, and other heathen G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, with Cupids, and such-like profanities, are most charmingly arranged amidst a lattice pattern of flowers and foliage. At the period, the beginning of the sixteenth century, when this dainty scheme was painted, great licence and irregularities prevailed in some of these conventual establishments. The abbess and her nuns often entered into all the gaieties of the outside world and indulged in the vices pertaining to it. In this case the wrath of the austere Adrian VI. was visited on Giovanna and her flock, and S. Paolo was closed, the abbess dying within a month after this humiliation.

GENOA

The poet Ta.s.so in his "Jerusalem Delivered" sings of the exploits of the great commander of the First Crusade; and although G.o.dfrey de Bouillon had little to do with Genoa, it was from its port that his fleet spread sail in 1096 and disappeared over the southern horizon on its way to the Holy Land. Nearly three years had pa.s.sed in hard fighting before G.o.dfrey and his army found themselves before the walls of Jerusalem. Meanwhile the Second Crusade had started from Genoa, under the command of Guglielmo Embrianco. He joined forces with De Bouillon, and the Holy City fell to their arms on July 15, 1099. Embrianco covered himself with glory; and on his return, among other treasures, brought home the celebrated Sacro Catino, which he presented to his native city. This dish of green gla.s.s is in the Cathedral. For centuries it was supposed to have been fas.h.i.+oned from a single emerald, and tradition has it as the very dish, the Holy Grail, which held the Paschal Lamb at the Last Supper.

The port of Genoa is very different now to what it was in those early days. s.h.i.+ps of all nationalities and every sort of build find refuge behind the numerous breakwaters which protect them from every gale that blows. The Molo Vecchio is the oldest of these shelters, and built upon half its length is an old quarter that is one of the fast-vanis.h.i.+ng slums of the city. On the sea-ward side of this mole the Mura della Malapaga frowns on incoming craft, just as when in days gone by it bid defiance to the enemies of Genoa whose temerity had led them thus far in attacks on the city. It is terminated by a grand sea-gateway of very ma.s.sive construction. At the end of a subsequent extension the old lighthouse rises, now well within the port. The house still stands in the old quarter in which Marco Polo was imprisoned after the defeat of the Pisans at the battle of Curzola, when he was taken captive. The Molo Nuovo stretches from the west side of the port near the tall Pharo, and, running outwards, bends back and covers the Molo Vecchio from the southerly gales.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD STREET, RAVENNA]

Genoa's quays present a busy picture with the endless traffic that makes her the premier port of Italy. Strings of heavily laden carts drawn by teams of great mules are continually pa.s.sing to and fro. Cabs rattle on the pavements, their drivers cracking their whips, the horses'

heads decorated with the long tail feathers of the Amherst pheasant that dance about to the music of the harness-bells. Groups of boys play pitch and toss with coins, and still cry "Croce e Griffo" ("Cross or Gryphon"), a cry as old as the wars with Pisa. Itinerant pedlars pester folk to buy what no one seems to want. Under the arcades that face the sea-front shops of all sorts exhibit everything the seafarer can possibly require, and a lively business goes on in restuffing the emigrants' mattresses with dry sea-weed or hay. Up, behind all this, narrow streets wind through the old parts of the city and form an intricate maze wherein it is not difficult to miss one's way. Many of the houses here are seven, eight, or nine storeys high. All the day's was.h.i.+ng--and every day is was.h.i.+ng day--hangs out from the windows on long bamboos, or flutters from a cord stretched across the confined thoroughfares. Fowls, in their inquisitive endeavours to find food, try to satiate an appet.i.te which is never satisfied. They are all scraggy.

Dark courtyards at the bottom of these tall dwellings teem with screaming children and scolding women who are engaged at the fountain troughs with the was.h.i.+ng. The ear-splitting cries of hawkers hasten one's footsteps down the steep descents, and one dodges out of their way only to lose oneself in vain attempts to leave the picturesque but squalid quarters of old Genoa.

However fascinating these slums may be--and they can hold their own from the painter's point of view with those in any other Mediterranean port--it must be acknowledged that the palaces for which Genoa is justly famous have hardly a rival. Historically the most interesting is the Palazzo di S. Giorgio, which stands close to the quayside at the east end of the Piazza Caricamento. It was erected in 1261 by Guglielmo Boccanegra, Captain of the People, for his own residence. At his death it was taken over as the government office for the registration of public loans, or _compere_, and named the Palazzo della Compere. In 1407 the Banking Company which practically ruled commercial Genoa acquired it as their headquarters, and its name was changed to that of the city's patron saint. This bank was the oldest in the world. It originated after the Genoese had driven the Venetians out of Constantinople, and so crippled the trade of their great Adriatic rival that for a time they were masters of nearly all the Eastern commerce that flowed westwards.

This increase in prosperity was to a great extent the cause of the formation of a trading company, which accepted deposits and advanced loans to others than its own members. Thus was founded a bank that carried on its business successfully until the last Doge of Genoa was unseated and the mushroom Republic of Liguria proclaimed. The bank's property was then confiscated, and Genoa, governed by time-servers and place-hunters, fell upon evil days.

The Palazzo has been much altered and restored, but retains some of the original Genoese Gothic of Boccanegra's building. The Grand Hall on the first floor contains many statues of the city's benefactors and prominent men, and is an interesting epitome of their charities, which are commemorated on tablets attached to each. Some of these statues are seated, others are standing. The former are of men who purchased their niche in this Temple of Fame by payment of one hundred thousand livres to the state; while those who wished to be handed down to posterity at a cheaper rate had to content themselves with effigies that for ever are on two legs. The building is now the Customs House, and so once more money pa.s.ses through different hands within its walls.