mainly in Corsica, formed during this period the most stable element in the state, until in 1528 the national spirit appeared to regain its ancient vigour when Andrea Doria succeeded in throwing off the French domination and restoring the old form of government. It was at this very period—the close of the 15th and commencement of the 16th century—that the genius and daring of a Genoese mariner, Christopher Columbus, gave to Spain that new world, which might have become the possession of his native state, had Genoa been able to supply him with the ships and seamen which he so earnestly entreated her to furnish. The government as restored by Andrea Doria, with certain modifications tending to impart to it a more conservative character, remained unchanged until the outbreak of the French Revolution and the creation of the Ligurian republic. During this long period of nearly three centuries, in which the most dramatic incident is the conspiracy of Fieschi, the Genoese found no small compensation for their lost traffic in the East in the vast profits which they made as the bankers of the Spanish crown and outfitters of the Spanish armies and fleets both in the old world and the new, and Genoa, more fortunate than many of the other cities of Italy, was comparatively immune from foreign domination.
At the end of the 17th century the city was bombarded by the French, and in 1746, after the defeat of Piacenza, surrendered to the Austrians, who were, however, soon driven out. A revolt in Corsica, which began in 1729, was suppressed with the help of the French, who in 1768 took possession of the island for themselves (see Corsica: History).
The short-lived Ligurian republic was soon swallowed up in the French empire, not, however, until Genoa had been made to experience, by the terrible privations of the siege when Masséna held the city against the Austrians (1800), all that was meant by a participation in the vicissitudes of the French Revolution. In 1814 Genoa rose against the French, on the assurance given by Lord William Bentinck that the allies would restore to the republic its independence. It had, however, been determined by a secret clause of the treaty of Paris that Genoa should be incorporated with the dominions of the king of Sardinia. The discontent created at the time by the provision of the treaty of Paris as confirmed by the congress of Vienna had doubtless no slight share in keeping alive in Genoa the republican spirit which, through the influence of a young Genoese citizen, Joseph Mazzini, assumed forms of permanent menace not only to the Sardinian monarchy but to all the established governments of the peninsula. Even the material benefits accruing from the union with Sardinia and the constitutional liberty accorded to all his subjects by King Charles Albert were unable to prevent the republican outbreak of 1848, when, after a short and sharp struggle, the city, momentarily seized by the republican party, was recovered by General Alfonzo La Marmora.
Among the earlier Genoese historians the most important are Bartolommeo Fazio and Jacopo Bracelli, both of the 15th century, and Paolo Partenopeo, Jacopo Bonfadio, Oberto Foglietta and Agostino Giustiniano of the 16th. Paganetti wrote the ecclesiastical history of the city; and Accinelli and Gaggero collected material for the ecclesiastical archaeology. The memoirs of local writers and artists were treated by Soprani and Ratti. Among more general works are Bréquigny, Histoire des révolutions de Gênes jusqu’en 1748; Serra, La Storia dell’ antica Liguria e di Genova (Turin, 1834); Varesi, Storia della repubblica di Genova sino al 1814 (Genoa, 1835–1839); Canale, Storia dei Genovesi (Genoa, 1844–1854), Nuova istoria della repubblica di Genova (Florence, 1858), and Storia della rep. di Genova dall’ anno 1528 al 1550 (Genoa, 1874); Blumenthal, Zur Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte Genua’s im 12ten Jahrhundert (Kalbe an der Saale, 1872); Malleson, Studies from Genoese History (London, 1875). The Liber jurium reipublicae Genuensis was edited by Ricotti in the 7th, 8th and 9th volumes of the Monumenta historiae patriae (Turin, 1854–1857). A great variety of interesting matter will be found in the Atti della Società Ligure di storia patria (1861 sqq.), and in the Giornale Ligustico di archeologia, storia, e belle arti. The history of the university has been written by Lorenzo Isnardi, and continued by Em. Celesia (2 vols., Genoa). (T. As.)
GENOVESI, ANTONIO (1712–1769), Italian writer on philosophy and political economy, was born at Castiglione, near Salerno, on the 1st of November 1712. He was educated for the church, and, after some hesitation, took orders in 1736 at Salerno, where he was appointed professor of eloquence at the theological seminary. During this period of his life he began the study of philosophy, being especially attracted by Locke. Dissatisfied with ecclesiastical life, Genovesi resigned his post, and qualified as an advocate at Rome. Finding law as distasteful as theology, he devoted himself entirely to philosophy, of which he was appointed extraordinary professor in the university of Naples. His first works were Elementa Metaphysicae (1743 et seq.) and Logica (1745). The former is divided into four parts, Ontosophy, Cosmosophy, Theosophy, Psychosophy, supplemented by a treatise on ethics and a dissertation on first causes. The Logic, an eminently practical work, written from the point of view of Locke, is in five parts, dealing with (1) the nature of the human mind, its faculties and operations; (2) ideas and their kinds; (3) the true and the false, and the various degrees of knowledge; (4) reasoning and argumentation; (5) method and the ordering of our thoughts. If Genovesi does not take a high rank in philosophy, he deserves the credit of having introduced the new order of ideas into Italy, at the same time preserving a just mean between the two extremes of sensualism and idealism. Although bitterly opposed by the partisans of scholastic routine, Genovesi found influential patrons, amongst them Bartolomeo Intieri, a Florentine, who in 1754 founded the first Italian or European chair of political economy (commerce and mechanics), on condition that Genovesi should be the first professor, and that it should never be held by an ecclesiastic. The fruit of Genovesi’s professorial labours was the Lezioni di Commercio, the first complete and systematic work in Italian on economics. On the whole he belongs to the “Mercantile” school, though he does not regard money as the only form of wealth. Specially noteworthy in the Lezioni are the sections on human wants as the foundation of economical theory, on labour as the source of wealth, on personal services as economic factors, and on the united working of the great industrial functions. He advocated freedom of the corn trade, reduction of the number of religious communities, and deprecated regulation of the interest on loans. In the spirit of his age he denounced the relics of medieval institutions, such as entails and tenures in mortmain. Gioja’s more important treatise owes much to Genovesi’s lectures. Genovesi died on the 22nd of September 1769.
See C. Ugoni, Della letteratura italiana nella seconda metà del secolo XVIII (1820–1822); A. Fabroni, Vitae Italorum doctrina excellentium (1778–1799); R. Bobba, Commemorazione di A. Genovesi (Benevento, 1867).
GENSONNÉ, ARMAND (1758–1793), French politician, the son of a military surgeon, was born at Bordeaux on the 10th of August 1758. He studied law, and at the outbreak of the Revolution was an advocate of the parlement of Bordeaux. In 1790 he became procureur of the Commune, and in July 1791 was elected by the newly created department of the Gironde a member of the court of appeal. In the same year he was elected deputy for the department to the Legislative Assembly. As reporter of the
diplomatic committee, in which he supported the policy of Brissot, he proposed two of the most revolutionary measures passed by the Assembly: the decree of accusation against the king’s brothers (January 1, 1792), and the declaration of war against the king of Bohemia and Hungary (April 20, 1792). He was vigorous in his denunciations of the intrigues of the court and of the “Austrian committee”; but the violence of the extreme democrats, culminating in the events of the 10th of August, alarmed him; and when he was returned to the National Convention, he attacked the Commune of Paris (October 24 and 25). At the trial of Louis XVI. he supported an appeal to the people, but voted for the death sentence. As a member of the Committee of General Defence, and as president of the Convention (March 7-21, 1793), he shared in the bitter attacks of the Girondists on the Mountain; and on the fatal day of the 2nd of June his name was among the first of those inscribed on the prosecution list. He was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on the 24th of October 1793, condemned to death and guillotined on the 31st of the month, displaying on the scaffold a stoic fortitude. Gensonné was accounted one of the most brilliant of the little band of brilliant
