Pasquale Paoli

Pasquale Paoli, portrait by Richard Cosway.

Commemorative placque to Paoli at the monastery of Saint Anthony of Casabianca.

Filippo Antonio Pasquale di Paoli (Pascal Paoli, April 6, 1725 – February 5, 1807), was a Corsican patriot and leader, the president of the Executive Council of the General Diet of the People of Corsica. Paoli designed and wrote the Constitution of this first democratic republic of the modern age himself. It was a representative democracy asserting that the elected Diet of Corsican representatives had no master. Paoli held his office by election and not by appointment. It made him commander-in-chief of the armed forces as well as chief magistrate. Paoli's government claimed the same jurisdiction as the Republic of Genoa. In terms of de facto exercise of power, the Genovese held the coastal cities, which they could defend from their citadels, but the Corsican republic controled the rest of the island from Corte, its capital.

Biography

Early years

Paoli was born in the hamlet of Stretta, Morosaglia commune, part of the ancient parish of Rostino, Haute-Corse, Corsica. He was the second son of the physician and patriot, Giacinto Paoli, who was to become one of three "Generals of the People" in the Corsican nationalist movement that rebelled against the then corrupt and tyrannical Genovese. Prior to that century Corsicans were satisfied to be ruled by Genoa. By 1729, the year of first rebellion, the Genovese were not tending to government and were suppressing all criticism. The major problems were the high murder rate because of the custom of vendetta, the raiding of coastal villages by the barbary pirates, oppressive taxes and economic depression.

The rebellion of 1729 over a new tax sent a message that the Corsicans no longer considered the Genovese fit to rule, the same message that was to be sent in 1789 by the same people to the Ancien Regime of France. The Genovese response foreshadowed that of the French monarchy: unable to win against the highly-motivated Corsicans they withdrew into their citadels and sent for foreign interventions, first from Austria and then from France. Defeated by professional troops the Corsicans ceded violence but kept their organization. After surrendering to the French in 1739 Giacinto Paoli went into exile in Naples with his then 14-year-old son, Pasquale. An older brother, Clemente, remained at home as a liason to the revolutionary diet, or assembly of the people.

Corsica was subsequently distracted by the War of the Austrian Succession during which troops of a number of countries temporarily occupied the cities of Corsica. In Naples Giacinto perceiving that he had a talented son spared no effort or expense in his education, which was primarily classical. The enlightenment of which Pascale was to become a part was neo-classical in its art, architecture and sentiments. In 1741 Pasquale joined the Corsican regiment of the royal Neapolitan army and served with distinction there.

On his return to Corsica on April 29, 1755 he became the General of the Corsican Nation, the commander-in-chief of the Corsican independence forces.

• 
  Pasquale Paoli, by Henry Bembridge, 1768
• 
  From a book by Edward Joy Morris, 1855
• 
  Oil by Sir William Beechey about 1805

President of the Corsican Republic

Flag of the Corsican Republic (1755-1769)

Main article: Corsican Republic

In November 1755, Pasquale Paoli proclaimed Corsica a sovereign nation, independent from the Republic of Genoa. After a series of successful actions Paoli drove the Genoese from the whole island except for a few coastal towns. He created the first constitution written under Enlightenment principles. He founded a university at Corte. Genoa responded by selling Corsica to the French and in 1769 he was defeated in the Battle of Ponte Novu by vastly superior forces and took refuge in England.

President of the departement of Corsica

After the French revolution Paoli became something of an idol of liberty and democracy. In 1789 he was invited to Paris by the National Constituent Assembly and was celebrated as a hero in front of the assembly. He was afterwards sent back to Corsica having been given the rank of lieutenant-general.

President of the British protectorate

Paoli split from the French Revolution over the issue of the execution of the king and threw in his lot with the royalist party. He did not make these views generally known, but when the revolutionary government ordered him to take Sardinia from Italy he put his nephew in charge of the expedition with secret orders to lose the conflict.

He had however also sent Napoleon Bonaparte as a colonel, who perceived the trick, barely escaped and became enraged, after having been a strong supporter and admirer of Paoli. The entire Bonaparte family denounced Paoli as a traitor before the French National Convention and aggravated the grievance by at first pretending to take Paoli's side. Thanks to Napoleon an arrest warrant was issued and sent to Corsica along with a force intended to take the citadels from the royalists, who had supplanted the Genovese after the sale of Corsica. Combining together the Paolists and royalists defeated Napoleon and drove him from the island in fear of his life.

Paoli then summoned a consulta (assembly) at Corte in 1793, with himself as president and formally seceded from France. He requested the protection of the the British government, then at war with revolutionary France. The British eventually sent a fleet under Admiral Samuel Hood. This fleet had just been ejected from the French port of Toulon by a revolutionary army following the plan of Napoleon Bonaparte, for which he was promoted to Brigadier General. The royalists at Toulon also had requested British protection.

For a short time, Corsica was a protectorate of King George III, chiefly by the exertions of Hood's fleet, and Paoli's cooperation. This was not an incorporation of Corsica into the British Empire and the name "Anglo-Corsican Kingdom" is a misnomer. Paoli was not a king and there was never any such kingdom. The relationship between Paoli's government and the British was never clearly defined, however, resulting in numerous questions of authority. At last the crown invited Paoli to resign and return to exile in Britain with a pension, which having no other options now he did. Not long after the French reconquered the island and all questions of Corsican sovereignity came to an end until the 20th century.

Second exile

Paoli was however soon forced to go into exile once more, and Corsica became a French département. He retired to London in 1796, when he obtained a pension.

Pasquale Paoli and Italian Irredentism

Insofar as Italian irredentism was a political or historical movement, Pasquale Paoli lived long before its time, did not originate, participate in, espouse, host, support or in any way have anything to do with the movement that ended with the occupation of Corsica by Italian fascist troops in the initial stages of World War II. The Italy of his time was not even a united country and he earned his reputation as an early revolutionary by leading Corsica out from under the dominion of one Italian state, the Republic of Genoa.

There is no question, however, that Paoli was sympathetic to Italian culture and regarded his own native language as an Italian dialect. It is not, but is a closely related Romance language; nevertheless, Paoli espoused the idea that it is. There is no evidence that he advocated the political unity of all Italians on formerly Roman soil, as did the irredentists and he certainly did not advocate union with Italy, as there was no Italy as it is known today. The modern state had to wait for historic Italian nationalism to run its course. His Italian cultural sympathies however have offered some ground for philosophic irredentism claiming him. He was considered by Niccolò Tommaseo, who collected his Lettere (Letters), as one of the precursors of the Italian irredentism, a view which is debatable.

Monument to Pascal Paoli, the Corsican hero who made Italian the official language of his Corsican Republic in 1755

The "Babbu di a Patria" (father of Corsica), as was nicknamed Pasquale Paoli by the Corsican Italians, wrote in his Letters the following appeal in 1768 against the French invaders:

We (Corsicans) are Italians because of birth and feelings, but first of all we feel Italians because of language, roots, traditions and all the Italians are all brothers for History and for God....As Corsicans we do not want to be slaves nor "rebels" and as Italians we have the right to be treated like all the other Italian brothers.... Or we 'll be free or we'll be nothing...Or we'll win or we'll die (against the French) with the arms in our hands...The war against France is holy and right as holy and right is the name of God, and here on our mountains will appear for all Italy the sun of liberty....

("Siamo còrsi per nascita e sentimento ma prima di tutto ci sentiamo italiani per lingua, origini, costumi, tradizioni e gli italiani sono tutti fratelli e solidali di fronte alla storia e di fronte a Dio… Come còrsi non vogliamo essere né schiavi né "ribelli" e come italiani abbiamo il diritto di trattare da pari con gli altri fratelli d’Italia… O saremo liberi o non saremo niente… O vinceremo con l’onore o soccomberemo (contro i francesi) con le armi in mano... La guerra con la Francia è giusta e santa come santo e giusto è il nome di Dio, e qui sui nostri monti spunterà per l’Italia il sole della libertà…")

Pasquale Paoli wanted the Italian language to be the official language of his Corsican Republic. His Corsican Constitution of 1755 was in Italian and the short-lived university he founded in the city of Corte in 1765 used Italian.

Cenotaph of Pasquale Paoli, at Westminster Abbey (London).

Paoli commemmorated in the USA

The American Sons of Liberty were inspired by Paoli and his struggle against despotism.

In 1768, the editor of the New York Journal described Paoli as "the greatest man on earth".

A literary party at Sir Joshua Reynolds' house (1781). The painting shows the friends of Reynolds (one is Paoli) - many of whom were members of "The Club" - use cursor to identify.

Many place names in the USA are named after him. These include:

• Paoli, Pennsylvania, which was named after "General Paoli's Tavern" a meeting-point of the Sons of Liberty and homage to the "General of the Corsicans".
• Paoli, Colorado
• Paoli, Indiana
• Paoli, Oklahoma
• Paoli, Wisconsin

Further reading

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• James Boswell's Account of Corsica and Memoirs of P Paoli (1768)
• N Tommaseo, "Lettere di Pasquale de Paoli" (in Archivio storico italiano, 1st series, vol. xi.), and Della Corsica, etc. (ibid., nuova serie, vol. xi., parte ii.);
• Pompei, De L'état de la Corse (Paris, 1821); Giovanni Livi, Lettere inedite di Pasquale Paoli (in Arch. stor. ital., 5th series, vols. v. and vi.);
• Bartoli, Historia di Pascal Paoli (Bastia, 1891); Lencisa, P. Paoli e la guerra d'indipendenza della Corsica (Milano, 1890).
• John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.

See also

• Corsican Constitution
• Corsican Italians
• History of Corsica

External links

• "Pasquale Paoli" (html). NNDB. Soylent Communications. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
• "Pasquale Paoli" (html). Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. Highbeam Encyclopedia. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
• "Pasquale Paoli & Corsican Independence from Genoa" (html). age-of-the-sage.org. Retrieved 2008-05-29.