CHAPTER VI.

THE PISANS IN CORSICA.

The legislator Sambucuccio fared as many other legislators have done. His death was a sudden and severe blow to his enactments. The seigniors immediately issued from their castles, and spread war and discord over the land. The people, looking round for help, besought the Tuscan margrave Malaspina to rescue them, and placed themselves under his protection. Malaspina landed on the island with a body of troops, defeated the barons, and restored peace. This happened about the year 1020, and the Malaspinas appear to have remained rulers of the Terra del Commune till 1070, while the seigniors bore sway in the rest of the country. At this time, too, the Pope, who pretended to derive his rights from the Frankish kings, interfered in the affairs of the island. It would even seem that he assumed the position of its feudal superior, and that Malaspina was Count of Corsica by the papal permission. The Corsican bishoprics furnished him with another means of establishing his influence in the island. The number of these had in the course of time increased to six, Aleria, Ajaccio, Accia, Mariana, Nebbio, and Sagona.

Gregory VII. sent Landulph, Bishop of Pisa, to Corsica, to persuade the people to put themselves under the power of the Church. This having been effected, Gregory, and then Urban II., in the year 1098, granted the perpetual feudal superiority of the island to the bishopric of Pisa, now raised to an archbishopric. The Pisans, therefore, became masters of the island, and they maintained a precarious possession of it, in the face of continual resistance, for nearly a hundred years.

Their government was wise, just, and benevolent, and is eulogized by all the Corsican historians. They exerted themselves to bring the country under cultivation, and to improve the natural products of the soil. They rebuilt towns, erected bridges, made roads, built towers along the coast, and introduced even art into the island, at least in so far as regarded church architecture. The best old churches in Corsica are of Pisan origin, and may be instantly recognised as such from the elegance of their style. Every two years the republic of Pisa sent as their representative to the island, a Giudice, or judge, who governed and administered justice in the name of the city. The communal arrangements of Sambucuccio were not altered.

Meanwhile, Genoa had been watching with jealous eyes the progress of Pisan ascendency in the adjacent island, and could not persuade herself to allow her rival undisputed possession of so advantageous a station in the Mediterranean, immediately before the gates of Genoa. Even when Urban II. had made Pisa the metropolitan see of the Corsican bishops, the Genoese had protested, and they several times compelled the popes to withdraw the Pisan investiture. At length, in the year 1133, Pope Innocent II. yielded to the urgent solicitations of the Genoese, and divided the investiture, subordinating to Genoa, now also made an archbishopric, the Corsican bishops of Mariana, Accia, and Nebbio, while Pisa retained the bishoprics of Aleria, Ajaccio, and Sagona. But the Genoese were not satisfied with this; they aimed at secular supremacy over the whole island. Constantly at war with Pisa, they seized a favourable opportunity of surprising Bonifazio, when the inhabitants of the town were celebrating a marriage festival. Honorius III. was obliged to confirm them in the possession of this important place in the year 1217. They fortified the impregnable cliff, and made it the fulcrum of their influence in the island; they granted the city commercial and other privileges, and induced a great number of Genoese families to settle there. Bonifazio thus became the first Genoese colony in Corsica.