Guglielmo Boccanegra

Guglielmo Boccanegra was a Genoese statesman, the first Capitano del popolo of the Republic of Genoa, from 1257 to 1262, exercising a real lordship, assisted in the government by a council of 32 elders.[1]

Guglielmo Boccanegra
1st Capitano del Popolo of the Republic of Genoa
In office
1257–1262
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byOberto Doria
Personal details
BornGenoa, Republic of Genoa
Died1273
(in exile in France)

Biography

Belonging to the rich but not noble family of merchants, the Boccanegra family would later give the first doge of the Republic, Simone Boccanegra, in 1339.

Boccanegra took power when an insurrection against the government of the old aristocracy made him captain of the people. He was also the commissioner, in 1260, of the building of Palazzo San Giorgio, the future seat of the republican power in Genoa.[2]

Treaty of Nymphaeum

The major accomplishment of his administration was the conclusion with the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in the Treaty of Nymphaeum in 1261, which after the Nicaean recovery of Constantinople led to the establishment of a Genoese trading colony at Galata, and an offensive-defensive alliance that opened up the Black Sea and the Byzantine Empire to rising Genoese colonial empire.[2]

Later years

However, Boccanegra failed to silence the domestic opposition of the old noble families, who deposed him in a bloody coup in May 1262. In exile, Boccanegra entered the service of the King of France, undertaking the fortification of Aigues-Mortes as its governor. He died there sometime in 1273.[3]

See also

References
  1. Lopez 1969.
  2. "Boccanegra Family | Genoese family". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-07-11.
  3. Bertone, Giorgio. Simone Boccanegra. Primo Doge di Genova immortale eroe verdiano A.D. 1339 (in Italian). ERGA.

Sources
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