Mythic Genoa

I ran a brief poll on the Atlas Games Forums asking which direction I should take for my blog in January 2014. The most common response overall (apart from “What Ars blog?” unfortunately) was “Mythic Genoa”…

It is unlikely there will be a revised Tribunal Book for Rome any time soon I suspect and even if there was, I’d prefer to leave it to others. I really want to concentrate on the potential for stories relating to the specific area and culture of only one of the maritime republics (in this case Genoa), by providing an intermittent series of short ideas. The random nature of this and planned scope would make it difficult to publish as an article in Sub Rosa and it’s likely to be too detailed for a Tribunal Book chapter in any case, so I’ll collate the various ideas here over time instead.

The map below is representative, although from a slightly later period:

Antique Map of Genoa (Wikimedia Commons)

This page therefore contains my various ideas and articles relevant to Mythic Genoa – the fictional version of Genoa in the setting of Mythic Europe, based on the real world Republic of Genoa circa 1220 but with an overlay of ArM5 elements.

Ars Magica 5th Edition Material on Genoa

The Commune

• Reasons to Travel to Genoa
• The City of Genoa
  • The Shadows of the Caruggi
  • The Lanterna
• Faith and the Divine in Genoa
• The Griffons of Genoa

Liguria and Beyond

• Porto Delphinus
• Mythic Pisa

Corsica and Sardinia

• Mythic Corsica
• Mythic Sardinia
  • The Giudicati of Logudoro
    • The Sea Grottos of Capo Caccia
  • The Ruins of Auctus
  • Verdi (ArM5)

The Tyrrhenian Sea

• The Aeolian Islands
• The Tuscan Archipelago
• The Pontine Islands

Characters

• Languages of the Tyrrhenian Sea
• The Merchant of Genoa
• Baliestri Genovese – Crossbowmen
• Practicos, Sardinian folk witches
• Mazzeri, the Nightwalking tradition of Corsica

Adventures 

• Adapting “The Ship of Desire”

Resources for Sagas set in Medieval Genoa

The best resource covering Genoa in the period up to and just beyond the canonical ArM5 start date of 1220 I have found to date on Genoa is Dr Stephen Epstein’s “Genoa and the Genoese 958-1528” (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996). I’ve included the link to the Google Books digital version but it may be available in a your local or nearby university library.

The useful summary essay written by Epstein available freely on the web is a good starting point and can be found on Professor George L. Gorse’s page at Pomona College. It provides a good overview of the physical characteristics, origins, history, institutions and economic life of the city. The bibliography mainly deals with works written in Italian which I can’t read but may be of further use to Italian speakers

Corsican Resources

The most useful books for a Corsican Saga are by Dorothy Carrington – the first details the folklore and supernatural elements (in particular the mazzeru Nightwalker variant), and the second provides a more mundane historical resource.

• The Dream Hunters of Corsica, by Dorothy Carrington
• Granite Island: a Portrait of Corsica, by Dorothy Carrington

 

Note: in the articles herein, the term “Genoa” here refers to both the main city of the commune but also to the greater entity of the maritime republic consisting of its dependent communes and colonies. For consistency “Genoese” is used as the adjective when referring to the commune, whereas “Genovese” is the noun for an individual considered a citizen of the commune or compagna (“company”).