lighten the toll on wine and corn. If this tenth part is large you are
welcome to it; if small, believe in my good wish. May the Most Holy
Trinity guard your noble persons and increase the lustre of your
distinguished office."

Such were the last words of Columbus to his native city. You may see his
birthplace, the very house in which he was born, on your left in the
Borgo dei Lanajoli, as you go down from the Porta S. Andrea.

It was in 1499 that Louis of France got possession of Genoa. He held the
city, cowed as it was, till 1507, when, goaded into rebellion by
insufferable wrongs, the people rose and threw out his Frenchmen with
their own nobles, choosing as their Doge Paolo da Novi, a dyer of silk,
one of themselves. Not for long, however, was Paolo to rule in Genoa,
for Louis retook the city, and Paolo, who had fled to Pisa, was captured
as he sailed for Rome, and put to death.

It was now that it came into the mind of Louis, who had learned nothing
from experience, to build another fort like to the Castelletto, to wit
the Briglia, to bridle the city. This he did, yet there lay the bridle
on which he was to be ridden back to France. For the Genoese never
forgave him his threat, which stood before them day by day, so that at
the first opportunity, Julius II, Pope and warrior, helping them, they
rose again, and again the French departed. And in 1515 Louis died, and
Francis I ruled in his stead. Then, the nobles of Genoa quarrelling as
ever among themselves, Fregoso agreed with the French king, who made him
governor of the city. The Adorni, angry at this, made overtures to the
Emperor, Charles V it was, who sent General Pescara and twenty thousand
men to take the city. There followed that most bloody sack, to the cry
of Spain and Adorni, which lives in history and in the hearts of the