Andrew had been much worried by a pilot asking him for this and for that. Doria said, “If you speak again to me more than three words, I will have you hung.” “Pay or discharge,” said the pilot. Doria laughed, gave him his pay, and retained his services.
Andrew Doria met with a great reverse at the hands of that same Dragut whom he had released to please Barbarossa. In 1552 Dragut came on him when he was least awares, and put him to flight. Dragut pursued him, sank two of his vessels, captured seven of his fleet with seven hundred German soldiers, and their captain, Nicolas Madrucci.
Andrew died in his splendid palace near Genoa in 1560, at the age of 93, without leaving issue by his wife who was niece of Pope Innocent VIII.
Albenga, easily reached from Alassio, either by road or rail, is a most interesting but unhealthy town. It lies low where three rivers, uniting, empty into the sea, and the plain is made up of deposits brought down by them. Anciently the sea reached to its walls, and only withdrew in the tenth century. Albenga was the capital of the Ligurian Ingauni, and a great naval station. Thence sailed a fleet of thirty-two ships which fought the Romans in B.C. 20. It helped Hannibal with ships and men, and when Magone, brother of Hannibal, was wounded, he retired to Albenga to be cured.
Afterwards it became, but reluctantly, allied to Rome. In the times of Probus, A.D. 276-282, a native of Albenga, named Proculus, a man of extraordinary strength, set up to be emperor, but was speedily killed. Constantine, a grandee of the Court of Honorius, A.D. 395-423, fortified the town, and he it was who built the Ponte Longo, a Roman bridge now sunk to the spring of the arches, and deserted by the river, which has completely altered its course.
Albenga has a most interesting cathedral of the twelfth century that has been mutilated and altered internally into a rococo temple. The west front was partly removed in renaissance times and rebuilt, clumsily; but externally, the east end with its apses tells of the true antiquity of the church. Hard by is what is still more venerable: a baptistery, half buried in the soil, of the fifth (?) century. It is descended into by fourteen steps, so greatly has the soil risen since it was built. The building is octagonal, and had its windows filled with pierced slabs of stone; of these fillings in only two remain, one very rich, with carved interlaced work as well as with perforations. Within is a large font for immersion, as at Ventimiglia, and the vault is sustained by eight granite columns, probably taken from a Pagan temple. The altar is ancient, enriched with mosaic work representing the Agnus Dei surrounded by twelve doves.