Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa | Page 6

for about this time Genoa seized Corsica, that fatal island which not only never gave her peace, but bred the immortal soldier who was finally to crush her and to end her life as a free power.
There follow the Crusades. These splendid follies have much to do with the wealth and greatness of Genoa. It was from her port that Godfrey de Bouillon set sail in the Pomella as a pilgrim in 1095. He appears to have been insulted at the very gate of Jerusalem, or, as some say, at the door of the Holy Sepulchre. At any rate he returned to Europe, where Urban II, urged by Peter the Hermit, was already half inclined to proclaim the First Crusade. Godfrey's story seems to have decided him; and, indeed, so moving was his tale, that the crowd who heard him cried out urging the Pope to act, Dieu le veult, the famous and fatal cry that was to lead uncounted thousands to death, and almost to widow Europe. In Genoa the war was preached furiously and with success by the Bishops of Gratz and Arles in S. Siro. An army of enthusiasts, monks, beggars, soldiers, adventurers, and thieves, moved partly by the love of Christ, partly by love of gain, gathered in Genoa. With them was Godfrey. They sailed in 1097: they besieged Antioch and took it. Content it might seem with this success, or fearful in that stony place of venturing too far from the sea, the Genoese returned, not empty. For on the way back, storm-bound perhaps in Myra, they sacked a Greek monastery there, carrying off for their city the dust of St. John Baptist, which to-day is still in their keeping.
Was it the hope of loot that caused Genoa in 1099 to send even a larger company to Judaea under the great Guglielmo Embriaco, whose tower to-day is all that is left of what must once have been a city of towers? Who knows? He landed with his Genoese at Joppa, burnt his ships as Caesar did, though doubtless he thought not of it, and marching on Jerusalem found the Christians still unsuccessful and the Tomb of Christ, as now, ringed by pagan spears. But the Genoese were not to be denied. If the valour of Europe was of no avail, the contrivance of the sea, the cunning of Genoa must bring down Saladin. So they set to work and made a tower of scaffolding with ropes, with timbers, with spars saved from their ships. When this was ready, slowly, not without difficulty, surely not without joy, they hauled and heaved and drove it over the burning dust, the immense wilderness of stones and refuse that surrounded Jerusalem. Then they swarmed up with songs, with shouting, and leapt on to the walls, and over the ramparts into the Holy City, covered with blood, filled with the fury of battle, wounded, dying, mad with hatred, to the Tomb of Jesus, the empty sepulchre of God.
Then eight days after came that strange election, when we offered the throne of Palestine to Godfrey of Bouillon; but he refused to wear a crown of gold where his Saviour had worn one of thorns, so we proclaimed him Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.
But the Genoese under Embriaco as before returned home, again not without spoil. And their captain for his portion claimed the Catino, the famous vessel, fashioned as was thought of a single emerald, truly, as was believed, the vessel of the Holy Grail, the cup of the Last Supper, the basin of the Precious Blood. To-day, if you are fortunate, as you look at it in the Treasury of S. Lorenzo, they tell you it is only green glass, and was broken by the French who carried it to Paris. But, indeed, what crime would be too great in order to possess oneself of such a thing? It was an emerald once, and into it the Prince of Life had dipped His fingers; Nicodemus had held it in his trembling hands to catch the very life of God; who knows what saint or angry angel in the heathen days of Napoleon, foreseeing the future, snatched it away into heaven, giving us in exchange what we deserved. Surely it was an emerald once? Is it possible that a Genoese gave up all his spoil for a green glass, a cracked pipkin, a heathen wash pot, empty, valueless, a fraud?--I'll not believe it.
Embriaco, however, returned once more to Palestine with his men, fighting under Godfrey at Cesarea; and again he came home in triumph, his galleys low with spoil. And indeed, though we hear no more of Embriaco, by the end of the first Crusade, Genoa had won possessions in the East,--streets in Jaffa, streets in Jerusalem, whole quarters in Antioch,