page_title: Pasquale Paoli
hierarchical_section_title: Pasquale Paoli
context_page_description: Filippo Antonio Pasquale de' Paoli FRS was a Corsican patriot, statesman and military leader who was at the forefront of resistance movements against the Genoese and later French rule in the island. He became the president of the Executive Council of the General Diet of the People of Corsica, and also designed and wrote the Constitution of the state.
  The Corsican Republic 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 Genoese held the coastal cities, which they could defend from their citadels, but the Corsican republic controlled the rest of the island from Corte, its capital.
  Following the French conquest of Corsica in 1768, Paoli oversaw the Corsican resistance. Following the defeat of Corsican forces at the Battle of Ponte Novu he was forced into exile in Britain where he was a celebrated figure.
context_section_description: Filippo Antonio Pasquale de' Paoli FRS (Italian: [fiˈlippo anˈtɔːnjo paˈskwaːle de ˈpaːoli]; French: Pascal Paoli; 6 April 1725 – 5 February 1807) was a Corsican patriot, statesman and military leader who was at the forefront of resistance movements against the Genoese and later French rule in the island. He became the president of the Executive Council of the General Diet of the People of Corsica, and also designed and wrote the Constitution of the state.
  The Corsican Republic 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 Genoese held the coastal cities, which they could defend from their citadels, but the Corsican republic controlled the rest of the island from Corte, its capital.
  Following the French conquest of Corsica in 1768, Paoli oversaw the Corsican resistance. Following the defeat of Corsican forces at the Battle of Ponte Novu he was forced into exile in Britain where he was a celebrated figure. He returned after the French Revolution, of which he was initially supportive. He later broke with the revolutionaries and helped to create the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom which lasted between 1794 and 1796. After the island was re-occupied by France he again went into exile in Britain where he died in 1807.
caption: Pasquale Paoli, portrait by Richard Cosway.
  "My eye fell upon the portrait of Pasquale Paoli, which was just as I had imagined him to be. His brow was arched and open, and his hair long and flowing; his eyebrows thick, and bent down on the eyes, as if frequently drawn together in anger or thought. His eyes were blue, large, and lucid with intellectual light; mildness, dignity and humanity, were forcibly expressed in his beardless, frank and prepossessing countenance. " – Ferdinand Gregorovius[1]
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