Sottoripa
The Crusades
Giovanni Battista Carlone "Guglielmo Embriaco at Gerusalem", chapel of the Ducal Palace (XVII century)
Commenda of San Giovanni di Prè
Holy calice - Museo Diocesano
Embriaci tower
A common
thread ties Genoa to the Holy Land, the Middle East, the Black Sea,
and the Land of the Rising Sun.
Their participation in the First Crusade and the capture of Jerusalem allowed
the Genoese to found their colonies in the Mediterranean. Ships sailed into the
harbor laden with goods and riches from the cities of Acre, Trabzon,
Constantinople, and the Greek islands. Genoese merchants financed the erection
of imposing buildings, as well as dwellings whose towers seemed to pierce the
sky, not to mention a spacious Ripa,
whose shop-lined porticoes overflowed with goods and merchandise. The city’s churches
bore vestiges of ancient Rome and housed devotional articles from the Orient.