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| Genova/Liguria |
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| Genoa(Genova) |
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| Genoa (Italian Genova, Genoese Zena, French G?nes, German Genua, Spanish Genova) is a city and a seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. The city has a population of ca. 600,000, the metropolitan area has a population of ca. 800,000.
Genua was a city of the ancient Ligurians. Its name is probably Ligurian, meaning "knee" (from Proto-Indo-European *genu 'knee'), i.e. "angle", from its geographical position, thus akin to the name of Geneva. Alternatively, the name has been claimed to derive from Latin Janua ("gate"), the two-headed god Janus, or an ancient word that means "foreigners", as the early settlers were considered foreign by the neighbouring
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History
Genoa's history goes back to ancient times. A city cemetery, dating from the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., testifies to the occupation of the site by the Greeks, but the fine harbor probably was in use much earlier, perhaps by the Etruscans. Destroyed by the Carthaginians in 209 BC, the town was rebuilt by Rome, under which the city enjoyed municipal rights and exported skins, wood, and honey. Although remaining faithful to Rome while other Ligurian and Celtic peoples of northern Italy stood by Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, its importance as a Roman port city was eclipsed by the rise of Vada Sabatia, near modern Savona.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Genoa was occupied by the Ostrogoths , then by the Lombards. For the following several centuries, Genoa was little more than a small, obscure fishing center.It then was ruled then by the Arabs and in that period it has flourished and gained many sciences and knowledges from the Arabs till it was abandoned after the fall of the Fatimid Empire. |
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