ABSTRACT
This chapter contextualizes my study by depicting the Genoese colonies in their shaping in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries against the background of the political events in the region. It deals with the early stages of the Italian penetration to the Black Sea area, the origins of the Genoese colonies, and the colonial system in its formation. The technical chronological end of the first chapter is 1400; however, reading the present study, we should constantly keep in mind a much more important landmark—the 1380s—which is the time of the final shaping of the Genoese colonial domain, and, at the same time, the point from which we have more abundant and more reliable serial source material. Thus, in general terms, it makes sense to divide the history of Gazaria into
from the thirteenth century until the 1380s (the final shaping of the Genoese Black Sea colonial system);
from the 1380s until 1453 (the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, the closure of the straits, the transition of the colonies to the Bank of Saint George and a growing, although never absolute, isolation of the colonies from the metropolis); and
from 1453 until 1475 (the fall of Caffa and most of other colonies).
The first task was a study of the role of the Genoese domains against the background of the political history and international relations in the region. As in the case with the later colonial experiences, the Italians applied certain political strategies of securing the hegemony. We must, however, keep in mind that Genoese colonization was largely a private undertaking; strikingly, like many other modern ones, managed by companies until the nineteenth century