Personally conducted Author:Frank Richard Stockton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. THE CITY OF THE BENDED KNEE. IT is not by any means a humble city to which .1 am now about to conduct you : it is an old city, which from time to time ... more »has been as proud as any in the world ; it is Genoa, called by the Italians La Superba, because of its many magnificent palaces, and because of its imposing appearance, as it rises in terraces above its bay on the side of a crescent-shaped hill. It was called Genoa, so say the people who make it their business to look into these things, from the Latin word gcnu, a knee ; because at the place where the city stands, the land is bent around the water so as to give the latter the shape of a bended knee. As I have said, Genoa has been a proud city. As far back as the days of the Romans it was an important seaport. It was independent, and governed itself, and its power increased greatly. Other towns looked up to it for protection against the Saracen pirates ; and it acquired possession, not only of islands in the Mediterranean, but of lands and ports in the East. Its commerce was very extensive, and it took a prominent part in the crusades. It made war against Pisa, and utterly defeated the navy of that city ; and there is reason to believe that the great Tower of Pisa has never stood up straight since. But, in spite of its wealth and its power, Genoa has been obliged to bend the knee about as often as any city that I know of. In the tenth century it knelt down to the Saracens, who captured it; and afterward it bent its knee to Venice, its great rival in commerce.For many years its nobles were arrayed against each other as Guelphs and Ghibellines, and whenever either party was defeated, it would call in some foreign power to help it; and in this way the city, at different times, fell under the control of various kings a...« less