In the growing rivalry between Venice and Genoa the former enjoyed a constant advantage in Constantinople until 1261. Then the Genoese very nearly succeeded in dislodging the Venetians from Stamboul altogether. They took possession of the Venetian churches and destroyed the palace of the Balio, sending its stones to Genoa to be built into the cathedral of San Lorenzo. A generation later they provoked a massacre of the Venetians, in which the Balio himself was killed; and the fleets of the two republics more than once came to blows in the Bosphorus. In the meantime Michael Palæologus had given the Genoese, partly as a reward for their services against the Venetians, partly to get rid of allies so formidable, the town of Perinthos, or Eregli, in the Marmora. About 1267, however, the Genoese succeeded in obtaining the far more important site of Galata. The conditions were that they should not fortify it, and that they should respect the emperor as their suzerain. But the enmity of Venice and the decadence of the Greeks brought it about that Galata presently built walls, captured the old castle of the chain, and otherwise conducted herself as an independent city. The existing Galata Tower marks the highest point of the walls, which were twice enlarged, and which in their greatest extent ran down on one side to Azap Kapou and on the other as far as Top Haneh. The colony was governed by a Podestà, sent every year from Genoa, who, like the Venetian Balio, was also accredited as minister to the emperor. Galata existed as a flourishing Genoese city for nearly two hundred years. The coming of the Turks in 1453 put an end to the conditions which had made her independence possible. Although cut off from Genoa, however, she did not immediately cease to be an Italian city. Indeed, the Conqueror might have been expected to deal more hardly with the Latin suburb than he did; for while the Galatiotes had entered into amicable relations with the invaders and had in the end voluntarily surrendered, they had also been the backbone of the Greek defence. But in accepting the keys of Galata Sultan Mehmed II assured the colonists the enjoyment of their goods and their faith, merely enjoining them to build no more churches, to forego the use of bells, and to throw down their land fortifications. This last condition seems never to have been carried out. [Illustration: Genoese archway at Azap Kapou]