Liguria
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a district of ancient Italy, the whole territory of Genoa and Nice, and which, according to the division of Augustus, was bounded N. by the Padus (Pô), E. by the Macra (Magra), separating it from Etruria, S. by the Ligurian Sea (Gulf of Genoa), and W. by the Varus (Var) and the Maritime Alps, separating it from Transalpine Gaul. It was inhabited by an ancient people called the Ligures, of whose origin nothing authentic has been recorded. They first came into collision with the Romans, 241 b. c., and P. Lentulus Caudinus celebrated a triumph over them 236 b. c. The Ligurians, allied with the Carthaginians, commenced hostilities by attacking Placentia and Cremona, Roman colonies, 200 b. c. A long series of wars, extending over a period of 80 years, ensued between the Romans and the Ligurians. Several tribes were reduced to subjection before 173 b. c.; others held out, and one tribe in the Maritime Alps was not reduced to obedience till 14 b. c. The Lombards overran REPUBLIC. The LIGURIAN French created a revolution in Genoa early in 1797, and by a convention signed at Montebello, June 5 and 6, this republic placed itself under the protection of France. Napoleon Bonaparte gave it the name of the Ligurian Republic, June LIGHT BELL CHART ROOM CREW QUARTERS 0000 STORES OIL FUEL CHAIN STORE OIL LOCKER WATER TANKS TANK TANK 14, which was incorporated with France by a convention concluded at Milan, June 4, 1805. The Ligurian Republic was dissolved in 1814, and Genoa was annexed to Sardinia. The inhabitants revolted, and proclaimed the restoration of the republic, April 3, 1849. The revolt was suppressed, April 11.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 treats Liguria almost entirely as a district of ancient Italy, running from the Po to the Var and taking in Nice — but Nice and the Var valley had already passed to France in 1860, and the name has since been given to a modern administrative unit rather than a Roman one. Liguria became one of the regions of the Italian Republic under the 1948 constitution: a narrow coastal strip of about 1.5 million people with Genoa as its capital, now among the oldest and fastest-shrinking populations in Italy. The Cinque Terre villages on its eastern coast, unremarked in 1921, were made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997 and draw millions of visitors a year, while Genoa remains one of the Mediterranean's largest container ports; the city's Morandi motorway bridge collapsed in August 2018, killing 43 people, and was rebuilt in 2020. On the Ligures themselves, Collier's admission that "of whose origin nothing authentic has been recorded" still largely holds, though most scholars now treat their language as Indo-European or at least heavily Indo-Europeanised.
Written for this edition, 2026.