Corsican Republic (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

The Corsican Republic was a state in Southern Europe that lasted from 1755 to 1860. Pasquale Paoli proclaimed the independence of Corsica from the Republic of Genoa in November 1755 after 26 years of struggle against the Genoese.

The Corsican Constitution was the first constitution written in Italian, the language of culture in Corsica until the end of the 19th century, and set a national parliament, or Diet, that composed of delegates elected from each district for three-year terms. Under the constitution, suffrage was extended to all men over the age of 25. The Republic minted its own coins at Murato in 1761, imprinted with the Moor's Head, the traditional symbol of Corsica.

Italian was also proclaimed as the official language of Corsica by Pasquale Paoli, an ardent Italian nationalist who would later he expressed this political stances during his later years. Paoli's ideas of independence, democracy and liberty also gained support from such philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Raynal, Mably.

Seeing that they had in effect lost control of Corsica, the Genoese responded by selling Corsica to the French by secret treaty in 1764 and allowing the Genoese troops to be replaced quietly by French ones. When all was ready in 1768 the French made a public announcement of the union of Corsica with France and proceeded to the reconquest. Paoli fought a guerilla resistance against the French from the mountains. But in 1769 he was defeated in the Battle of Ponte Novu by vastly superior forces and took refuge in Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily. Corsica officially became a French province in 1770.