The Genoese had settled in Cembalo (Balaklava), on the Crimean coast, from at least 1344. The possession of the colony lasted, almost continuously, until the City’s fall in 1475. The plaque recalls that at the fall of Constantinople, new works of fortification were initiated which  would  come to define the appearance of the colony.
Mounted on one of the towers, the plaque was removed by the Italian Bersaglieri in 1855, during the Crimean War; General Alfonso La Marmora then donated it to Genoa.