A Companion to Medieval Genoa

A Companion to Medieval Genoa introduces non-specialists to recent scholarship on the vibrant and source-rich medieval history of Genoa. Focusing mostly on the eleventh to fifteenth centuries, the volume positions the city of Genoa and the Genoese within the broader history of the Italian peninsula and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. Thematic contributions highlight the interdependence of local, regional, and international concerns, and serve as a helpful corrective to the traditional overemphasis of Florence and Venice in the English-language historiography of medieval Italy. The volume thus offers a fresh perspective on the history of medieval Italy–as well as a handy introduction to the riches of the Genoese archives–to undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in related fields.

"[This is] a work that emphasizes connections between the Genoese local and remote, comprehensively fleshed out in the book's maps, figures, glossary, and eighteen essay-length chapters… the text remains accessible throughout, aimed for an audience familiar with but not necessarily expert on the material at hand… the collection pushes the reader to see the Genoa beyond its designated latitude and longitude, to understand, in this post-spatial-turn world, that the Genoa of the middle ages was conceptualized, exported, and even commoditized by its inhabitants and interlocutors throughout the medieval Mediterranean and beyond. Benes's collection does what few recent works of Italian medieval history dare to do, that is, to recognize and detail how the inhabitants of the peninsula were connected to each other and to the far-flung artistic, cultural, intellectual, and political environments in which they and their cities played significant roles." - Laura K. Morreale, in The Medieval Review 19.04.10.