ABSTRACT
One of the characteristics of Mediterranean urban society is its cosmopolitanism. Mediterranean port cities in particular tend to be cosmopolitan, especially when the nature of their trade and the contacts they have both in the East and the West have led these cities constantly to expand their international networks. Genoa must be included together with a few other large metropolises, such as Constantinople, Venice, Naples, and Palermo for, at the centre of the Ligurian coastal region, between the eleventh and the fifteenth century it built up a vast commercial hub covering the entire Mediterranean from the Black Sea to Gibraltar. To the crafts and industrial production which attracted the population of the periphery and the hinterland, from the Apennine mountains and beyond Piedmont to the plain of Lombardy and the Po, the Ligurian metropolis soon added trade, shipbuilding, and the financial instruments developed in Genoa in conjunction with its economic expansion. Since an essential condition for this orientation was applying policies to ensure and advance Genoa’s major interests, the Genoese government always tried to develop complex diplomatic policies aimed at forming the alliances it needed to pursue its ambitions. This policy was bearing fruit from the late twelfth century onwards, making Genoa a powerful pole of attraction for merchants, ambassadors, shipbuilders, craftsmen, and also for a swarm of workmen, handymen, and adventurers of all sorts vying for the opportunities offered by the port and its offshoot warehouses up and down the Ripa Maris. On these bases, municipal institutions and ways of thinking soon adapted to welcoming foreign communities into the fondachi and loggie, where they could participate in transactions and negotiations made possible by places to meet and opportunities for exchange. The main groups were Italians, Catalans, Provençals, Burgundians, and Germans.
