Page 88 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

88 from Italy to the Canary Islands

It is not enough simply to study the institutional history of Genoa to
understand the dynamics and evolution of the city’s ruling class; only by
comparing the official sources of the Commune with the abundant contem-
porary formal documentation regarding the private lives of members of the
Genoese clans can we try and see the full picture.
The albergo was a horizontal structure, based on the sharing of pow-
er and on the management of common property, through which families
formed a consortium in a single clan, securing themselves with greater
chances of occupying public office. This coalescence had been favoured
by the strong conflicts within the Genoese group of power which remained
in place throughout the whole period of the medieval communes.
We should also consider that none of the feudal families in the Ligurian
territory, before the establishment of the communes, knew the principle of
primogeniture, following a system in which power was shared and all the
male sons of the lords inherited.
Similarly, property purchased by Genoese aristocrats was generally
shared out equally between all the male descendants of the lord.
Therefore, in the logic of a civic and mercantile aristocracy such as that
of Genoa (cives nobiles genuenses), where it was essential to be able to
have as many representatives as possible, both to cover public office and to
dedicate oneself to international trade in the Mediterranean and throughout
Europe, the strengthening of the horizontal structure of the family became
the best instrument to assert oneself in public life.
Smaller families could be absorbed by larger ones in the organisation of
an albergo, taking on their surname and coat of arms, or it happened that
all the families took a brand new surname, on equal terms.
The members of the albergo all had to live in the same quarter of the
city, overlooked by the towers, the domus magna, the lodge, the storehouse
and often the family’s private church.
The Genoese civic aristocracy, understood as a group of power whose
representatives rotated according to inheritance and exclusively in practis-
th
ing public office, began to develop during the 12 century, with the estab-
lishment of the Commune of Genoa, flanking and surpassing the ancient
Episcopal power. Coming to the places of Lanzarotto Malocello’s family,
there is no doubt that Genoa found resistance in the rivalry with Savona,
the leading city in Western Liguria, due to the clash between the growth
objectives of Genoa and the irrevocable desire of Savona not to suffer ex-
ternal invasion on the Western coast (what is more or less today the Prov-