The statue portrays Alien, the monster from the homonymous film directed by Ridley Scott, which, when it was released in theatres in 1979, shocked the spectators, disturbed by the special effects, also signed by the Italian master Carlo Rambaldi, and revolutionised the very concept of horror and science fiction films. Not totally science fiction, not completely horror, “Alien” represents the beginning of a new path of interpretation of the ancestral fears of the contemporary man.

Curiosity: Alien's screenwriter, Dan O'Bannon, drew inspiration from an Italian film for his story. It all started with the short story "A night of 21 hours" by Renato Prestiniero, which became a film in 1965 directed by Mario Bava as "Planet of the Vampires".
 

The statue reproduces the original costume of Darth Vader (in Italian Dart Fener), the villain of "Star Wars", a series of films created by director George Lucas. On the base of the statue there is the original signature of David Prowse, the actor who played the role. Star Wars is one of the most famous film sagas, starting with the movie “Star Wars - Episode IV. A new hope "(1977). The other two titles of the first trilogy are: “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983). In 1999 Lucas shot a prequel trilogy. The titles are "The Phantom Menace" (1999), "Attack of the Clones" (2002) and "Revenge of the Sith" (2005). The Walt Disney Company in 2012 bought the rights of the entire series and started the production of a new trilogy. This sequel is about what happens after the last episode of the original trilogy of 1977. And here are the titles: “The Awakening of the Force” (2015), “The Last Jedi” (2017) and “The Rise of Skywalker” (2019). The films became a cultural phenomenon that has influenced several generations, and which continues to thrill both adults and children, from 1977 to today.

Fun fact – When Luke Skywalker jumps into space to save himself from Darth Vader, in the movie “Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), he doesn’t actually scream. In the remastered version of 1997, they added the sound effect of the scream. This was not appreciated by the fans due to the fact that Luke not screaming emphasized that he didn’t fear death. In the following versions, the scream was removed and this detail remains solely in the version of 1997.

On April 27, 1837, Nicolò Paganini wrote his will with his own hand. The three pages of dense writing are enclosed in an envelope sealed with sealing wax and are then delivered to the Royal Senate to be inserted among public documents to be validated. Among other provisions, the violinist establishes: "I bind my violin to the city of Genoa so that it is perpetually preserved". Thus the famous Cannone was donated to the Municipality and is now preserved in the collections of Palazzo Tursi.

The most important cartographer in the service of the Republic of Genoa, Matteo Vinzoni (1690-1773), born in Montaretto near Bonassola, represents here, with essential and highly elegant features, the territory of “Cinque Terre” between Monterosso and Riomaggiore. The description of the territory, a central element for the political, military, economic and social activities of a state, is affirmed in Genoa quite late compared to other Italian realities, but experience a great development with the activity of Colonel Vinzoni, who takes care of the details of its representations through patrols on the territory, to have a first-hand knowledge of it. The current size of the cartographic collection is about 8788 units, between the first representations of the late fifteenth century and the end of the twentieth century. The collection can be consulted on the Topographia website:
http://www.topographia.it/DFrontofficeGe/index.htm;jsessionid=30B99F2DA1ABBAC5F516DFD40D15661E
 

Genoa did not have a public residence of representation adequate to host the representatives of foreign powers. In the modern age, therefore, the system of rolli is established, that is, lists of particularly luxurious private mansions that the government required to house popes, emperors, kings, princes and foreign ambassadors visiting the Republic. On the basis of the beauty, width and accessibility of the structure and the prestige of the owner family, the residences were divided into different areas, from which they were drawn by lot according to the rank of the people to host. Five documents (1576, 1588, 1599, 1614 and 1664) have been identified by Ennio Poleggi in his studies on this unique public hospitality system, but further research has helped the identification of other papers, which cover a period that goes from 1510 to 1739. The acts are extremely lean and dry, very distant from the splendour and richness of the buildings listed there, which were capable of evoking the interest and astonishment of personalities such as Rubens, who specifically came to Genoa to draw and describe them.

The Casa delle Compere e dei Banchi di San Giorgio is perhaps the best-known Genoese institution in the world: between 1407 and 1805 it combined some prerogatives of the state (public debt, taxation, territorial sovereignty) with the exercise of a financial activity started in 1408. San Giorgio thus became the first example of a public bank in Europe, with officials hired through competition who carried out deposit, transfer and credit operations by administering the current accounts of the Genoese. The archive therefore preserves documentation relating to taxation, management of territorial possessions such as Corsica or Sarzana, customs records and current accounts, testifying to the extreme variety of skills acquired over time by this institution. In banking, ledgers record customer transactions as they appear before the scribe to dispose of their money. The operations are recorded in double entry: an accounting system that sees in Genoa the oldest known use in public accounting, with the first register of the massaria of the Ancient Municipality in 1340.

The State Archives of Genoa preserves the largest Genoese collection of documents relating to Christopher Columbus, almost two hundred according to the list compiled by Aldo Agosto in the publication on the occasion of the Colombian celebrations of 1992. They contain references to the apprenticeship of the explorer and to his relations with the city of origin, before and after the discovery of America. In this letter, the Protectors of the House of San Giorgio respond to the Admiral, congratulating him on the discovery and promising to favour his son Diego for every need. The status of fellow citizen is underlined, pointing out how Columbus demonstrates that he is "fond of his homeland", to which he demonstrates a "unique love and generosity". On the other hand, in his letter of April 1502, the explorer had stated: "although my body is here, my heart is always with you".

In 1313 was established the extraordinary magistracy of the "Eight wise men in charge of the questions of the Black Sea, Gazaria (= Crimea) and Persia and navigation beyond Sicily", or more simply Officium Gazarie, with the task of legislating and maintaining judicial control on navigation to the East and the Black Sea, the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic and to organise the commercial settlements in Crimea. The rules issued by the judiciary were brought together by Doge Simone Boccanegra in 1340 in a single corpus, making it a real international navigation code. It establishes measures, loading capacity (freeboard), on-board rigging, crew of boats; obligations of the captain; provisions on caravan navigation along the Eastern and Western routes; rules for the organisation and governance of the colonies in the Aegean and the Black Sea. The manuscript has the full-page text and the columns in red and the coeval leather binding and wooden plates are perfectly preserved.

The State Archives of Genoa remained the only archive in the world to preserve original Byzantine documents from the twelfth century. The second half of the century was particularly turbulent for relations between Genoa and Byzantium. Raids and looting hit on several occasions the embolus of Santa Croce, the settlement area of the Genoese in Constantinople, as well as the other Latin settlements in the city. The Genoese respond with the raids of the pirate Gafforio and other privateers against the coasts and islands of the Aegean islands. In 1199, Emperor Alexis III Angelo Comneno sent this basilikòn ("royal writing") to resume diplomatic relations. This type of letter is the main tool used by the Byzantine chancellery for the care of international relations with the West. Between the Greek text and its Latin translation, the emperor affixed with his own hand and with red ink, obtained with cinnabar and the use of which was reserved only for him, the date (menologue) which was valid as a signature. Following this gesture by the Byzantine emperor, Ambassador Nicolò Medico in 1201 obtained the allocation of a new neighbourhood for the Genoese.

The expedition against Almeria and Tortosa of 1147-1148 turns out to be extremely expensive for the Genoese, enough to cause a serious financial crisis. As early as 1149, a reconciliation with the Islamic kingdoms of the western Mediterranean was sought, in particular with the Emir Abu-Abd-Allah Muhammad ibn Said ben Mardanish, called King Wolf in Latin sources. In 1188, Ambassador Nicola Leccanozze signed a twenty-year agreement with a strong commercial content with Abd-Allah, son and successor of King Wolf. Faced with the commitment not to damage the sovereign's lands, not to lend assistance to his enemies and to defend his subjects by land and sea, the Genoese obtain the promise of protection of the territories under their jurisdiction, exemption from customs duties, the protection of ships even in the case of a shipwreck, the concession wherever they wanted of a warehouse, an oven, access to a bathroom once a week and a church for the celebration of their rituals. The privileges of 1181 and 1188 preserved in the Genoa State Archives are the only ones left among those issued from the Banū Gāniya dynasty. The Arabic text is interlined by the Latin translation and thus testifies the meeting of the two diplomacies in the varied cultural panorama of the medieval Mediterranean.