STATE OF CORSICA UNDER THE BANK OF ST. GEORGE.
With Giampolo and Renuccio ended the resistance of the Corsican
seigniors. The noble families of the island decayed, their strong
keeps fell into ruin, and at present we hardly distinguish here and
there upon the rocks of Corsica the blackened walls of the castles of
Cinarca, Istria, Leca, and Ornano. But Genoa, in crushing one dreaded
foe, had raised against herself another far more formidable--the
Corsican people.
During this era of the iron rule of the Genoese Bank, many able
men emigrated, and sought for themselves name and fame in foreign
countries. They entered into military service, and became famous as
generals and Condottieri. Some were in the service of the Medici,
others in that of the Spozzi; or they were among the Venetians, in
Rome, with the Gonzagas, or with the French. Filippini names a long
array of them; among the rest, Guglielmo of Casabianca, Baptista of
Leca, Bartelemy of Vivario, with the surname of Telamon, Gasparini,
Ceccaldi, and Sampiero of Bastelica. Fortune was especially kind to a
Corsican of Bastia, named Arsano; turning renegade, he raised himself
to be King of Algiers, under the appellation of Lazzaro. This is
the more singular, that precisely at this time Corsica was suffering
dreadfully from the Moors, and the Bank had surrounded the whole island
with a girdle of beacons and watch-towers, and fortified Porto Vecchio
on the southern coast.
After the wars with Giampolo and Renuccio, the government of the Bank
was at first mild and paternal, and Corsica enjoyed the blessings of
order and peace. So says the Corsican chronicler.
The administration of public affairs, on which very slight alteration
was made after the Republic took it out of the hands of the Bank, was
as follows:--
The Bank sent a governor to Corsica yearly, who resided in Bastia. He
brought with him a vicario, or vicegerent, and a doctor of laws. The
entire executive was in his hands; he was the highest judicial and
military authority. He had his lieutenants (_luogotenenti_) in Calvi,
Algajola, San Fiorenzo, Ajaccio, Bonifazio, Sartena, Vico, Cervione,
and Corte. An appeal lay from them to the governor. All these officials
were changed once a year, or once in two years. To protect the people
from an oppressive exercise of power on their part, a Syndicate had
been established, before which a complaint against any particular
magistrate could be lodged. If the complaint was found to be well
grounded, the procedure of the magistrate concerned could be reversed,
and he himself punished with removal from his office. The governor
himself was responsible to the Syndics. They were six in number--three
from the people, and three from the aristocracy; and might be either
Corsicans or Genoese. In particular cases, commissaries came over,
charged with the duty of instituting inquiries.
Besides all this, the people exercised the important right of naming
the Dodici, or Council of Twelve; and they did this each time a change
took place in the highest magistracy. Strictly speaking, twelve were
chosen for the districts this side the mountains, six for those beyond.
The Dodici represented the people's voice in the deliberations of the
governor; and without their consent no law could be enacted, abolished,
or modified. One of their number went to Genoa, with the title of
Oratore, to act as representative of the Corsican people in the Senate
there.
The democratic basis of the constitution of the communes and _pievi_,
with their Fathers of the Community and their _podestàs_, was not
altered, and the popular assembly (_veduta_ or _consulta_) was still
permitted. The governor usually summoned it in Biguglia, when anything
of general importance was to be done with the consent of the people.
It is clear that these arrangements were of a democratic nature--that
they allowed the people free political movement, and a share in the
government; gave them a hold on the protection of the law, and checked
the arbitrary tendencies of officials. The Corsican people was,
therefore, well entitled to congratulate itself, and consider itself
favoured far beyond the other nations of Europe, if such laws were
really allowed their due force, and did not become an empty show. How
they did become an empty show, and how the Genoese rule passed into
an abominable despotism--Genoa, like Venice, committing the fatal
error of alienating her foreign provinces by a tyrannous, instead of
attaching them to herself by a benevolent treatment--we shall see in
the following chapters. For now Corsica brings forward her bravest
man, and one of the most remarkable characters of the century, against
Genoa.