In the second half of the Middle Ages (c. 1000-1500), Genoa developed an extensive network of merchants and trade posts across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The Genoese established commercial bases in different cities and ports of the Greek islands and mainland, the Crimean Peninsula, Anatolia, the Middle East, North Africa and Iberia. They sometimes consisted of entire quarters, but more often only of few buildings, a street or a square. This was the result of communal initiatives under the direction of the commune of Genoa or private ventures carried out by Genoese families or aggregations of merchants and investors called maone.¹ For example, the Embriaco family administrated the city of Gibelet (Byblos) in Lebanon on behalf of the commune and paid an annual fee in order to maintain it as a hereditary fief.² On the other hand, the maona of Ceuta was established to secure the interests of the Genoese merchants in the Maghreb and was involved in the naval expedition organised in 1235 against the city.³

[Pic. 1 - Genoese expansion in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea up until the 17th century.]

Little is known about medieval Genoa prior to the eleventh century. In 934-5, a Fatimid fleet attacked and raided the city; perhaps leading to a period of decline.⁴ However, Genoa recovered and by the eleventh century, Genoese merchants were present and active in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. Alongside commercial activities the Genoese fleet began to undertake raids against Islamic cities and naval forces in the Mediterranean. Initially, these actions were carried out in collaboration with Pisa. In 1016, the Genoese and the Pisans launched an offensive on Sardinia against Mujāhid al-ʿĀmirī (r. 1014-1044-5), amīr of the ṭāʾifa of Dénia.⁵ The ṭāʾifa of Dénia comprehended the region of Dénia in Eastern Iberia and the Balearic Islands and between 1015 and 1016, Mujāhid attempted to establish control over Sardinia. Genoese and Pisans saw this offensive as a threat to their commercial interests and fearing further raids at the hand of Islamic forces, attacked Mujāhid, preventing him from extending his influence over Sardinia.

In 1087, the Genoese and the Pisans returned to cooperate in an offensive against al-Mahdiyya⁶ which from 1057 to 1148 was the capital of Ifrīqiya under the Zīrid Dynasty (972–1148).⁷ The Genoese and the Pisans sacked the city and offered al-Mahdiyya to Roger I of Sicily (r. 1071–1101). Yet he refused and they retreated.⁸ This attack strengthened Genoese and Pisan influence over the central Mediterranean and boosted their commercial activities in the area. Moreover, Genoese and Pisans obtained a great booty from al-Mahdiyya which further financed the growth of the city of Genoa and Pisa. The building of the Cathedral of Pisa was financed with the loot from this campaign⁹, and the bacini - fragments of Islamic pottery inserted in many of the structures of the Pisan churches - are likely an outcome of this raid.¹⁰ Similarly, the building of San Lorenzo cathedral in Genoa, started in 1098, was financed with the spoils of the first crusade and the Holy Grail exposed in the cathedral, which consists of a green glass bowl of Roman origins, came from the loot of the city of Caesarea in 1101.¹¹

Indeed, the Genoese expansion across the Mediterranean underwent an acceleration thanks to the involvement of Genoa in the First Crusade (1096-1099). In 1098, a fleet of twelve galleys, which had set sail from Genoa the previous year, provided supplies to the crusaders during the siege of Antioch and enforced a blockade of the port. Meanwhile, Genoese troops joined the siege.¹² In 1099, Genoese forces under the command of the Embriaco brothers took part in the siege of Jerusalem while in 1101 they participated in the taking of Arsuf and Caesarea.¹³ Commercial privileges, tax exemptions and city neighbourhoods in Antioch, Arsuf, Caesarea, and Acre were granted to Genoa by the newly established Crusader states in exchange for the aid provided by the Genoese during the campaign. Thanks to these benefits the city of Genoa grew rapidly reaching a status similar to that of Venice, which already enjoyed privileges granted by the Byzantine emperors.

[Pic. 2 – The siege of Antioch in a 14th century manuscript. The National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague.]

Under these circumstances, interactions and exchanges between Muslims and Genoese further developed and individuals crossed the political, religious, and cultural borders between Genoa and the Islamic world more and more. One of the most famous examples of this is Segurano Salvaygo. Egyptian chroniclers of the time of the Mamluk sultan al–Nāṣir Muḥammad (r. 1293-4, 1299-1309 and 1310-41) mentioned a Genoese merchant called Sakrān active in Egypt at the beginning of the fourteenth century.¹⁴ Benjamin Kedar identified him as Segurano Salvaygo, member of a Genoese family involved in commercial activities across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.¹⁵

In 1303-4, Segurano is recorded in Egypt offering precious gifts to Sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad and it is said that the sultan Baybars II (r. 1309-1310) called him brother.¹⁶ Moreover, Segurano’s ships flew the banner of the sultan and he conducted business with European merchants on behalf of the Mamluks in order to by-pass the papal embargo towards Egypt which banned Europeans from trading with the Mamluks.¹⁷ Kedar argues that Segurano won the favour of the Mamluk sultans thanks to his role as a mediator in the slave trade between Egypt and the Black Sea. Indeed, Segurano and other members of the Salvaygo family were active in the Genoese possession of Caffa in the Black Sea, which at the time was a hotspot of the slave trade, and the Mamluks relied on slaves, especially Circassian, to replenish their army.¹⁸ Segurano also took part in diplomatic missions in the name of the sultan to the Genoese, the Aragonese and possibly the Golden Horde.¹⁹

[Pic. 3 - A Mamluk training with a lance in a 16th century Mamluk manuscript.]

The range of actions of Segurano went beyond the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. In 1305, he and his brothers appear involved in commercial activities in France and in 1312 and 1313, he was recorded in some notarial acts in Genoa.²⁰ Finally, he was executed in 1322-23 by command of Öz Beg (r. 1313–1341) khan of the Golden Horde due to the sudden outbreak of a diplomatic crisis between the Mongols and the Mamluks.²¹ Segurano Salvaygo well represents how certain individuals were able to continuously cross the permeable borders between Europe and the Islamic world during the Middle Ages and the breadth of the Genoese presence in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

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[1] Michel Balard, “Il Banco di San Giorgio e le colonie d’Oltremare” in La Casa di San Giorgio (Genova: Società ligure di storia patria, 2006), 63.

[2] For more information on the Embriaco family see Gabriella Airaldi, Blu come il mare (Genova: Frilli, 2006).

[3] For more information on the maona of Ceuta see Raffaele di Tucci, Documenti Inediti Sulla Spedizione E Sulla Mahona Dei Genovesi a Ceuta (Genova: Società ligure di storia patria, 1935).

[4] Romeo Pavoni, Liguria medievale: Da provincia romana a stato regionale (Genova: ECIG, 1992), 174.

[5] Bernardo Maragone, Annales Pisani (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1936), 4-5.

[6] For a complete account see Herbert E. J. Cowdrey, ‘The Mahdia Campaign of 1087.’ The English Historical Review 92, no. 362 (1977), 8.

[7] Amin Tibi, “Zīrids”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 30 July 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8170.

[8] For the motivation of the refusal see Gaufredo Malaterra, De Rebus Gestis: Rogerii Calabriae Et Siciliae Comitis Et Roberti Guiscardi Cucis Fratris Eius (Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli, 1927) 66-7; 86-7.

[9] Karen, Mathews, “Holy Plunder and Stolen Treasures,” in More Than Mere Playthings, ed. Julia C. Fischer (Newcastle, 2016), 60.

[10] David Abulafia, “Industrial products: the Middle Ages,” in Mediterranean encounters, economic, religious, political, 1100-1550, ed. David Abulafia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 356.

[11] Hans Eberhard Mayer, The Crusades, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 68-9.

[12] Caffaro, Annali Genovesi De Caffaro E De'suoi Continuatori (Genova; Roma: Istituto Sordo-muti, Tipografia Del Senato, 1890), 1023.

[13] Steven Epstein, Genoa & the Genoese, 958-1528 (Chapel Hill, N.C. ; London : University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 30-1.

[14] Subhi Y Labib, Handelsgeschichte Ägyptens Im Spätmittelalter, (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1965), 75-6.

[15] Benjamin Z. Kedar, ‘Segurano-Sakrān Salvaygo: Un mercante genovese al servizio dei sultani mamalucchi, c. 1303-1322’ in The Franks in the Levant, 11th to 14th Centuries, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar, (Aldershot, Hampshire: Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum; Ashgate Publishing Company, 1993), 76-7.

[16] Kedar, ‘Segurano’, 79-80.

[17] Kedar, ‘Segurano’, 80-3.

[18] Andrew McGregor, A Military History of Modern Egypt (Westport, Conn: Praeger Security International, 2006), 15.

[19] Hannah Barker, That Most Precious Merchandise: the Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500 (Philadelphia: University Press of Pennsylvania, 2019), 197-8.

[20] Kedar, ‘Segurano’, 84-5.

[21] Barker, That, 197.

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Stefano Nicastro studied History at the University of Milan (Italy) and spent his Erasmus in Istanbul (Turkey) at the Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi. Subsequently, Stefano completed a MSc in Middle Eastern Studies with Arabic at the University of Edinburgh and further studied Arabic in Egypt at International House Cairo – ILI. Stefano is currently a PhD Student in History at the University of Edinburgh. He tweets@StefanoNicastr1.