Stirrings in La Superbo

During its 13th century heyday as a Mediterranean trading power, Genoa came to be known as "La Superba" --which, since it can be taken to mean "the haughty," was not necessarily a compliment. Still, the appellation was particularly apt for Genoa's business men, a tightfisted, close-knit breed that ranked among the world's most con servative. Interested only in sure things, they earned a lasting distinction by re fusing to stake a local boy named Chris topher Columbus to a daring expedition.

Even today, the Palazzo San Giorgio, headquarters of Genoa's port authority, contains no monument to Columbus; instead, it houses a life-size statue of one Francesco Vivaldi, a more representative native son, who in 1371 introduced compound interest into the city's banking system.

Sails for Sunlight. The Genoese have been loath to change their ways even in the face of economic decline. Today, the city's richest businessmen still walk to work rather than buy automobiles; only recently did the last of them abandon the electricity-pinching practice of using white sails to reflect sunlight into their musty offices. Until a new auto strada is completed in 1970, the main stretch of road along the tourist-heavy coastal route between Genoa and the French frontier will remain the two lane Via Aurelia, built by the ancient Romans. Whenever somebody suggests expanding the roads to Italy's interior, Genoese businessmen invariably ask: "Why? Just to let people from Milan come over here to have a good time?"

Genoa's main asset is its naturally endowed harbor--and the Genoese even let that fall into disrepair. In the 1930s, the city qualified as Southern Europe's leading port only because Benito Mussolini deliberately diverted shipping from Naples and Venice to keep Genoa's tonnage ahead of archrival Marseille. Once Mussolini was dis patched, Genoa's troubles emerged for all to see. Hemmed in by the Apennines with little room to expand, its harbor area is a cramped compound of 1,000-year-old streets and hopelessly antiquated facilities. Operations are further hampered by some of the world's slowest-footed longshoremen as well as a bewildering maze of handling charges, tariffs and hidden fees. So costly a bottleneck has Genoa become that it now handles barely half as much cargo (37 million tons a year) as Marseille.

"Too Long." Ironically enough, it took a member of one of Genoa's most conservative old-line families, Shipping Magnate Giacomo Costa, 61, to make the first move to clean up the city's mercantile morass. For Genoa, Costa's scheme was downright startling. Concluding that the only long-term solution to the city's port problem was to look for space elsewhere, he got the backing of 170 leading Genoese businessmen, built a new landlocked "port" on the other side of the Apennines, 40 miles inland at Rivalta Scrivia. Linked to the sea by its own railroad and highways, the new facility is designed to ease pressure on the existing port. The way it works, incoming cargo is unloaded in Genoa directly onto freight cars or trucks, then whisked to Rivalta Scrivia for customs clearance, sorting and warehousing. In that way, cargo handling costs could be eventually pared by as much as 50%.

In operation just four months, the $12 million venture is moving only 20,000 tons of cargo a month, but Costa predicts that volume will at least triple by 1970. As much sense as Rivalta Scrivia makes, many of Genoa's stodgier merchants have characteristically fought its development every step of the way. But Costa is determined to see it through. "For too long we have regarded the port as a place to make money," says he. "The time has come to begin thinking about what service we can offer." And of course making more money in the process.

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