Repubblica di Genova/Republic of Genoa - a MMU Story

The loyalist regiments under Cattaneo, already resentful of the months of unpaid service, mutinied en masse when news arrived that Clavarezza's rebel forces have besieged the capital. Within a few short days, the city fell without resistance. Cattaneo and the few remaining loyalists were arrested (Liguria falls to rebels).

The trial of Doge Cattaneo in December of 1545 was a strange affair by any reckoning. It was mostly intended to be a show trial, exhibiting to all the guilt of Federico Cattaneo. But this aspect was shadowed by the need for haste, as if the accusations against the Doge was the last battle of the Civil War, something that had to be won by swift and relentless action. The trial could not last long anyways due to political circumstances – since that would give the Doge a stage in public to play the role of the innocent victim. An extended performance could rally the whole of Liguria to him, destroying the fragile peace. Therefore the noblemen resolved that the trial would not last long, regardless of the defense presented by the Doge's lawyers. Legal formalities should in principle be observed, but the play must only have one inevitable conclusion.

The charges against the Doge were read by Clavarezza himself:

Cattaneo's only response was:

The next day, he is beheaded in the Piazza.


The rest of the surviving loyalists, mostly the Savvi Grandi and their families who had supported Cattaneo, were exiled to the new penal colonies established along the West African coast. Indeed, the West African coast became something of a dumping ground for the Genoese disenfranchised – beggars and orphans, prostitutes and political criminals - all those who might burden the public purse were sent to the harsh penal colonies.

A Hero's Welcome​

On August 1547, almost twelve years after he first set sail, Andrea Adorno returned from his expedition to Cathay. Delayed by bad weather and hostile local chieftains, he nevertheless returned with a ship laden with pepper, cumin, cinnamon, and other riches of the Orient. But, he did not receive the hero's welcome he expected. He returned to find his previous supporters executed or exiled and his estates confiscated by the new government. Upon docking at Liguria, his ship's cargo was seized by the state and his person thrown into prison for “subversion against the Republic and conspiracy with the traitor Cattaneo to undermine the Council.”


And so, in two years, one of the greatest explorers of the time is to die, destitute and alone, in the cold damp cell of a debtor's prison.

Meanwhile, Adorno's valuable cargo is able to secure new loans for the provisional government from the Medici banks in nearby Florence, serving as collateral until repayment in full (in-game, the interest rate on the loan is 4% due to modifiers from “content commercial faction”).


The loan bought a new lifeline for the fragile government, allowing it to payoff the wages owed to the veteran soldiers of the war.
The civil war brought on a collapse of Cattaneo's censorship on Lutheran literature and other sectarian pamphlets – leading to various sects seizing the opportunity to publish their views and practice their religion openly and defiantly. One of the many attempts to democratize religion came with the insistence of the sects on the right of any man, and in some instances, any woman, to preach. This was, naturally, condemned by the Catholic establishment, which urged the new government to reinstitute censorship laws.


Separatists such as the Hutterites, Anapabtists, and Calvinists rejected even the idea of a state church and ministries based on parishes with the clergy paid from compulsory tithes. These sects laid emphasis on the Spirit rather than the Word of Christianity, that is on the workings of the Holy Spirit within the individual rather than the trappings and ceremonies of the Church and its scriptures. Though the sects were more popular amongst the commoners, it also found adherents amongst the nobility. Largely politically motivated, the nobility saw the sects as a means to undermine the entrenched power of the Roman Catholic Church. In order to avoid the religious divisiveness of the past decade, Clavarezzo instituted a policy of “benign neglect” concerning the propagation of these new heresies, allowing their practitioners to live in relative peace and quiet (but always under the state's watchful eye).


While the majority of the Genoese were looking towards reform within the Catholic church, the radical sects seemed set on religious anarchy and experiment rather than reform. With the end of the Religious War within the Holy Roman Empire, however, a begrudging degree of toleration of their behavior was agreed between the various Princes of the HRE, a policy which the Republic strove to emulate.

Governance by the Sword​

Continuing the policy of conscription started by Cattaneo, a new National Army was formed by the disbanded militia, all of which fell under Clavarezza's jurisidiction. The public need for such an army was reflected in the sentiments of many. In a rousing speech during an officer-commissioning ceremony, Lord Clavarezza explained the Machiavellian rationale:

“Professional mercenaries serve only for pay and plunder, and would do all they could to prolong the fighting for their own ends, turning Genoa into another province of the Religious Wars... In Bavaria and Tuscany they fought only for spoil, rapine and destruction – we must employ men who will fight for the sake of just causes, and bear their own charge. I would rather have a thousand or two thousand honest citizens whose hearts move in unison with their blades, rather than ten thousand mercenary soldiers that only boast of their bygone glories.”​

Initially the National regiments suffered the same problems which beset all armies: shortage of money to pay the soldiers, attrition, and desertion. In other respects, however, the National Army marked a break with the past. While the majority of its officers were aristocrats, they were appointed for their proficiency rather than social status or wealth. Freed from local interests and a regional base, the new National army was mobile and flexible, with a great social and geographical mix among its officers and foot soldiers. However, the democratic nature of the army was to become a hotbed of radical ideas and debates that will forever change the direction of the new Republic.

Considering the nature and formation of the new National army, it is not surprising to find it become a political force. Unlike the condotta of old, the soldiers were open and aware of the influence of sectarian congregations within their homeland. A strong religious ideology developed within the rank and file of the army as they saw themselves as the instruments of Divine Providence.

Within a few months, a “Commission of Inquiry” of the army was created and a number of reforms presented to the provisional government. Since they were truly a people's army, the Commission's suggestions found a wide-based of support, particularly in Liguria itself. The interests were far-ranging and reflected the wishes of everyone from religious radicals to craftsmen, merchants to shopkeepers. They demanded for liberty of conscience, legal reforms and equal application of laws, the end of imprisonment for debt, the abolition of trade monopolies and the end of press censorship. Unlike the other agitating groups in the Republic, the Army's proposals were backed by a show of arms, able to remove and dispose of “uncooperative leaders.”


Seeing no other choice but to accept the monster created by their own hands, the provisional government agreed to compromises with the National Army. Checks on the Great Council's power would be effected by a Lower House, consisting of representatives elected from constituencies in Lombardy. Decentralization of power would be achieved through an extension of the democratic franchise to local magistrates (Event: “Grant power to local authorities,” +1 decentralization), who are also elected officials. Though it is important to note that participation in the new Republic did not include servants, apprentices, or women.

Clavarezzo assumed the illustrious title of the “Protector of the Republic.” In theory, the position is to be up for election every ten years, though in practice whomever held the reigns of the Army became de-facto military head of state. Indeed, the final climactic act in this great theater of constitutional reform is the emergence of political power backed by the barrel of a gun.

Below the Protector is the “Council of Three,” in theory beholden to the Lower House and the Great Council, but in practice imbued with extraordinary powers. Indeed, the first Council of Three in the provisional government all came from the Army (in-game, this is the three advisers, which currently are a quartermaster, army reformer, and master of mint).

They could invoke “emergency legislation” to cut red tape, by-pass the slow-moving deliberations of the Great Council, are authorized to act on its own initiative, make payments out of secretive funds, and even give covert instructions for assassinations. Its limits of jurisdiction covered “all things concerning the security of the state and preservation of morals” - words so expansive as to be practically without meaning.

Weak and insecure, the first task facing the leaders of the infant Republic is to defeat the foes agitating at its borders. Accordingly, Clavarezza turned to Crete and Sicily where the rebellion against Genoese rule had continued in a desultory fashion throughout the Civil wars.


With an Army of 9,000 men, all veterans of the Civil War, Clavarezza laid siege and captured the rebellious garrison on the island of Crete. What followed was one of the worst acts of atrocities committed in Republican history – the garrison and civilians, almost 4,000 people in total, were put to the sword and the few remaining survivors sent to the West African penal colonies. The following year, in a whirlwind campaign on the Sicilian mainland, the rebel towns were captured. Massive land confiscations followed, disenfranchising the Sicilians and leaving much of the island in the hands of Ligurian noblemen for centuries to come.

Indeed, “freedom” had no meaning for those living on the peripheries of the Republic.

With the last revolt brutally suppressed in the provinces in 1549, the Republic showed signs of the slow road to recovery. But, there still was no formally ratified Constitution in 1549 nor was there a fully functional legal civil government. The political bureaucracy was on an unavoidable collision course with the new National Army, delayed only by the charisma of Clavarezza.


So, when Clavarezza was found on 19 March 1549, sprawled in his bedchamber in a pool of blood, the fragile peace that so many have died for threatened once again to explode into violence.