35 Facts About Pasquale Paoli

Pasquale Paoli became the President of the Executive Council of the General Diet of the People of Corsica and wrote the Constitution of the state.

Pasquale Paoli's government claimed the same jurisdiction as the Republic of Genoa.

Pasquale Paoli returned after the French Revolution, of which he was initially supportive.

Pasquale Paoli later broke with the revolutionaries and helped to create the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom which lasted between 1794 and 1796.

Pasquale Paoli was idolized by a young Napoleon Bonaparte, who was a Corsican nationalist at the time.

Pasquale Paoli saw the Bonapartes as collaborators, and upon regaining power during the French Revolution he tried to prevent Napoleon from returning to his position in the Corsican National Guard.

Napoleon never fully outgrew his fondness of Pasquale Paoli, and had mixed feelings about him throughout the rest of his life.

Pasquale Paoli was born in the hamlet of Stretta, Morosaglia commune, part of the ancient parish of Rostino, Haute-Corse, Corsica.

Pasquale Paoli 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 rule by the Republic of Genoa, which at that time they regarded as corrupt and tyrannical.

The enlightenment of which Pasquale Paoli was to become a part was neo-classical in its art, architecture and sentiments.

Pasquale Paoli is said once to have heard an old man on the road reciting Virgil, walked up behind him, clapped him on the back, and resumed reciting at the point where the other had left off.

In 1741, Pasquale Paoli joined the Corsican regiment of the royal Neapolitan army and served in Calabria under his father.

The young Pasquale Paoli became of interest when in opposition to a plan to ask the Knights of Malta to assume command, he devised a plan for a native Corsican government.

In that year, Giacinto decided that Pasquale Paoli was ready to supplant Theodor, and wrote to Vincente recommending that a general election be held.

Pasquale Paoli's second was to frame a constitution, which when ratified by the population in 1755, set up a new republic, a representative democracy.

The new head of state, called the General, Pasquale Paoli, was elected over rival candidate Emmanuele Matra by representatives of the pievi, although only 16 of the 68 were represented.

Linda Colley credits Pasquale Paoli as writing the first ever written constitution of a nation state.

Pasquale Paoli fought a guerilla war from the mountains but in 1769 he was defeated in the Battle of Ponte Novu by vastly superior forces and took refuge in England.

In London, Pasquale Paoli attracted the attention of the Johnsonian circle almost immediately for which his expansive personality made him a natural fit.

Such behaviour as Pasquale Paoli showing his bullet-ridden coat to all visitors and then demanding a gratuity for the observation were amusing to the group, which had begun when its members were starting their careers and according to its chronicler James Boswell were themselves needy.

Pasquale Paoli's memoirs were recorded by Boswell in his book, An Account of Corsica.

Pasquale Paoli became sincerely pro-British and had a genuine affection for his new friends, including the King, a predisposition that in the French Revolution led him into the royalist camp.

Pasquale Paoli arrived in time for the election of departmental officers at Orezza, ran for president, and was elected unanimously.

Pasquale Paoli thought the history amateurish and too impassioned and refused the documents; Napoleon at this point had no idea of Pasquale Paoli's regal connections in Britain or moderate, even sympathetic, sentiments about royalty.

Pasquale Paoli did not make these views generally known, but when the revolutionary government ordered him to take Sardinia he put his nephew in charge of the expedition with secret orders to lose the conflict.

Pasquale Paoli then summoned a consulta at Corte in 1793, with himself as president and formally seceded from France.

Pasquale Paoli requested the protection of the British government, then at war with revolutionary France.

At last, the Crown invited Pasquale Paoli to resign and return to exile in Britain with a pension, which, having no other options now, he did.

Pasquale Paoli died on 5 February 1807, and was buried in Old St Pancras Churchyard in London.

Pasquale Paoli's name is listed on the 1879 Burdett-Coutts Memorial Sundial amongst the important graves lost.

Pasquale Paoli never married and as far as is known had no heirs.

Insofar as Italian irredentism was a political or historical movement, Pasquale Paoli lived long before its time and did not have anything to do with the movement that ended with the occupation of Corsica by Italian fascist troops in late 1942, during World War II.

Pasquale Paoli was considered by Niccolo Tommaseo, who collected his Lettere, as one of the precursors of the Italian irredentism.

The "Babbu di a Patria", as Pasquale Paoli was nicknamed by the Corsicans, wrote in his Letters the following appeal in 1768 against the French invaders:.

Pasquale Paoli wanted Italian to be the official language of his Corsican Republic.