Ajaccio is the capital and largest city of Corsica, France. It forms a French commune, prefecture of the department of Corse-du-Sud, and head office of the Collectivité territoriale de Corse. It is also the largest settlement on the island. Ajaccio is located on the west coast of the island of Corsica, 210 nautical miles (390 km) southeast of Marseille.
Corte is a commune in the Haute-Corse department, on the island of Corsica, France.
Filippo Antonio Pasquale de' Paoli was a Corsican patriot, statesman, and military leader who was at the forefront of resistance movements against the Genoese and later French rule over the island. He became the President of the Executive Council of the General Diet of the People of Corsica and wrote the Constitution of the state.
L'Île-Rousse is a commune in the Haute-Corse department of France on the island of Corsica.
Maria-Letizia Bonaparte, known as Letizia Bonaparte, was a Corsican noblewoman and the mother of Napoleon I of France. As the mother of the Emperor, she received the title of "Madame Mère".
Saint-Florent is a commune in Haute-Corse department on the island of Corsica, France. Originally a fishing port located in the gulf of the same name, pleasure boats have now largely taken the place of fishing vessels.
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of the French mainland, west of the Italian Peninsula and immediately north of the Italian island of Sardinia, the nearest land mass. A single chain of mountains makes up two-thirds of the island. As of January 2023, it had a population of 351,255.
The history of Corsica goes back to antiquity, and was known to Herodotus, who described Phoenician habitation in the 6th century BCE. Etruscans and Carthaginians expelled the Phoenicians, and remained until the Romans arrived during the Punic Wars in 237 BCE. Vandals occupied it in 430 CE, followed by the Byzantine Empire a century later.
The University of Corsica Pasquale Paoli is a French university, based in Corte, Haute-Corse, with secondary campuses in Ajaccio, Biguglia and Cargèse. Founded in 1765, closed in 1769, and re-founded in 1981, it is the only university on the island of Corsica.
Italian irredentism in Corsica was a cultural and historical movement promoted by Italians and by people from Corsica who identified themselves as part of Italy rather than France, and promoted the Italian annexation of the island.
In July 1755, Pasquale Paoli proclaimed Corsica a sovereign state, the Corsican Republic, independent from the Republic of Genoa. He created the Corsican Constitution, which was the first constitution written in the Italian language. The text included various Enlightenment principles, including female suffrage, later revoked by the Kingdom of France when the island was taken over in 1769. The republic created an administration and justice system, and founded an army.
The flag of Corsica was adopted by General of the Nation Pasquale Paoli in 1755 and was based on a traditional flag used previously. It portrays a Moor's head in black wearing a white bandana above his eyes on a white background. Previously, the bandana covered his eyes; Paoli wanted the bandana moved to above the eyes to symbolize the liberation of the Corsican people from the Genoese.
The Anglo-Corsican Kingdom, also known officially as the Kingdom of Corsica, was a client state of the Kingdom of Great Britain that existed on the island of Corsica between 1794 and 1796, during the French Revolutionary Wars.
The Genoese towers in Corsica are a series of coastal defences constructed by the Republic of Genoa between 1530 and 1620 to stem the attacks by Barbary pirates.
Corsican nationalism is the concept of a cohesive nation of Corsica and a national identity of its people. The Corsican autonomy movement stems from Corsican nationalism and advocates for further autonomy for the island, if not outright independence from France.
Jacques Pierre Abbatucci was a Corsican who became an officer in the army of Genoese Corsica, Ancien regime France and the First French Republic.
The French conquest of Corsica was a successful expedition by French forces of the Kingdom of France under Comte de Vaux, against Corsican forces under Pasquale Paoli of the Corsican Republic. The expedition was launched in May 1768, in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War. A French expeditionary force was landed on the island of Corsica, then ruled by the Corsican Republic. Marching inland to overcome any Corsican opposition, the French force initially suffered an unexpected defeat at the Battle of Borgo. But a new commander, the Comte de Vaux, was appointed to lead the expedition, and decisively defeated the Corsican army at the Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769, effectively bringing an end to Corsican resistance.
An Account of Corsica is the earliest piece of writing related to the Grand Tour literature that was written by the Scottish author James Boswell. Its first and second editions were published in 1768, with a third edition within twelve months. The full title given to the journal is An account of Corsica, the journal of a tour to that island and memoirs of Pascal Paoli.
The invasion of Corsica was a campaign fought in the spring and summer of 1794 by combined British military and Corsican irregular forces against a French garrison, early in the French Revolutionary Wars. The campaign centred on sieges of three principal towns in Northern Corsica; San Fiorenzo, Bastia and Calvi, which were in turn surrounded, besieged and bombarded until by August 1794 French forces had been driven from the island entirely.
Constitutional Project for Corsica is the second of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's three works on political affairs, following The Social Contract and preceding Considerations on the Government of Poland.
