Surely Genoa would claim a tract of land or some Islands for itself, but would it be feasible for a country as relatively small as Genoa to hold on to any colonies in the New World?
The Genoese could just hire ships and crews from one of the powers that had started to venture into those seas - the Spanish and Portuguese and to a lesser extent the French and English.
True, but that's no way to sustain colonies. They might end up reverse-engineering the ships, though.
Surely Genoa would claim a tract of land or some Islands for itself, but would it be feasible for a country as relatively small as Genoa to hold on to any colonies in the New World?
What about a monarchy in Genoa? The word Doge (which applies to the ruler of Genoa as well as Venice) is the same as Duke in Italian, and a transfer back the other way could make colonisation more likely.