1776 - Echoes of the American Revolution in the Dukedom of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject History - Miscellaneous, Harvard University (GSAS), course: International History, language: English, abstract: This work seeks to better understand how a small and, under a political perspective, seemingly insignificant northern Italian state, the Dukedom of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, became connected to the political and military storm brewing in a far-distant corner of the world called America. The time examined in this essay is the year 1776. During the eighteenth century the Dukedom of Parma depended both economically and politically on the two main Bourbon powers: France and Spain. France and Spain were also the two main allies of the American revolutionaries. Parma was diplomatically represented by Spain, while its only independent diplomatic representation of the small state resided in France. Nonetheless, it would not, at first consideration, seem obvious to find such a wide and detailed amount of information concerning the American Revolution, or about the parliamentary debates taking place in London, in the dukedom's only official means of communication, the Gazzetta di Parma. Indeed, in this period, Parma was arguably the most politically conservative state on the Italian peninsula, one unlikely to be so interested in the talk of rights and freedom being spread by the American Revolution.

The primary sources used for this research are mostly unpublished. They are the dispatches from the ambassador of Parma at Versailles to the Parmesan secretary of state, contained in Parma's State Archive (PSA), and editions of the Gazetta di Parma from 1776, contained in the municipal archive.