NAVIGATION

The softness of the carving suggests that this figure of Christ was carved in early 16th century Genoa, the city Petrarch called ‘La Superba’. The superb city of palaces, gardens and art whose merchant fleet reigned supreme from Spain to the southern Russian ports of the Black Sea, the city that gave the Spaniards Colombus, but which in return controlled the contents of Spain’s American silver fleets, becoming the Wall Street of the 16th century flowing with money ruled by factions of bankers and oligarchs, populated by rugged individualists and entrepreneurs, and leaving a mark in the fashion industry with its silks and sturdy blue cotton trousers the French called ‘de Gíªnes’.