Acknowledgements
I am especially grateful to Walter Melion and Ivo Romein at Brill for their encouragement and subsequent patience when I was slowed down by various infirmities and miscalculations. The anonymous reviewers of the initial version of this study offered critiques and a wide range of suggestions, which have turned out to be indispensable in partly rethinking and (I hope) improving the scope of my original project.
My debts to Italian scholars working on early modern Genoa, especially the century leading to and including the visits of Van Dyck, are obviously considerable, as signalled at every turn in the notes and bibliography. I have tried to add my own specialised contribution to their efforts, and more generally to emphasise the substance of their achievements to an anglophone readership whose interests have slighted Genoa in favour of more celebrated Italian centres. Recent research by a number of American scholars and others who have chosen to make Genoa their focus has also been invaluable. Closer to home, Edward Chaney opportunely drew my attention to the Genoese visits of Richard Lassels and John Evelyn.
Friends and colleagues have given welcome support and help as this book has taken shape. In the early stages Jeremy Wood gave me practical advice which turned out to be spot on; and conversation with him about Van Dyck has always been enlightening. Freida Stack has used her bookbinding skills to restore my disintegrated tome recounting the conspiracy of Giulio Cesare Vachero. Steve Bending and Tutul Dasmahapatra did some essential rearranging of my living space when that became necessary, and later Steve reordered their reorderings; most recently Tutul has effected a marriage between my new printer and my mature laptop which I could never have managed. The guardian angel of my computer is Ian Haines, and just the knowledge of his cyberspatial presence, however usually unseen, is infinitely reassuring. In this particular instance his expert help has been even more welcome than usual. Production of the text has been handled with sympathetic oversight by Melissa Hansen, and the comprehensive index compiled by Madelon Franssen.
Much appreciated stays at Silvia Neonato and Alberto Alberaniâs house along the coast at Ruta made it easy and pleasant to travel in and out of Genoa on a daily basis. Lesley Caldwellâs continuously generous hospitality in north London has made it even easier to get to the Warburg Institute and the British Library, to the staff of which I am as ever grateful.
This book is dedicated to the two youngest people I know, who have made my advancing years intriguing and enjoyable in ways which I could never have suspected. Needless to say they are absolved from reading it.