CHAPTER VIII.

COMMENCEMENT OF GENOESE SUPREMACY--CORSICAN COMMUNISTS.

Pisa made a formal surrender of the island to Genoa, and thirty years after the death of Giudice, the Terra del Commune, and the greater number of the seigniors submitted to the Genoese supremacy. The Terra sent four messengers to the Genoese Senate, and tendered its submission under the condition, that the Corsicans should pay no further tax than twenty soldi for each hearth. The Senate accepted the condition, and in 1348 the first Genoese governor landed in the island. It was Boccaneria, a man who is praised for his vigour and prudence, and who, during his single year of power, gave the country peace. But he had scarcely returned from his post, when the factions raised their heads anew, and plunged the country into the wildest anarchy. From the first the rights of Genoa had not been undisputed, Boniface VIII. having in 1296, in virtue of the old feudal claims of the papal chair, granted the superiority of Corsica and Sardinia to King James of Arragon. A new foreign power, therefore--Spain, connected with Corsica at a period of hoary antiquity--seemed now likely to seek a footing on the island; and in the meantime, though no overt attempt at conquest had been made, those Corsicans who refused allegiance to Genoa, found a point of support in the House of Arragon.

The next epoch of Corsican history exhibits a series of the most sanguinary conflicts between the seigniors and Genoa. Such confusion had arisen immediately on the death of Giudice, and the people were reduced to such straits, that the chronicler wonders why, in the wretched state of the country, the population did not emigrate in a body. The barons, as soon as they no longer felt the heavy hand of Giudice, used their power most tyrannously, some as independent lords, others as tributary to Genoa--all sought to domineer, to extort. The entire dissolution of social order produced a sect of Communists, extravagant enthusiasts, who appeared contemporaneously in Italy. This sect, an extraordinary phenomenon in the wild Corsica, became notorious and dreaded under the name of the Giovannali. It took its rise in the little district of Carbini, on the other side the hills. Its originators were bastard sons of Guglielmuccio, two brothers, Polo and Arrigo, seigniors of Attalà. "Among these people," relates the chronicler, "the women were as the men; and it was one of their laws that all things should be in common, the wives and children as well as other possessions. Perhaps they wished to renew that golden age of which the poets feign that it ended with the reign of Saturn. These Giovannali performed certain penances after their fashion, and assembled at night in the churches, where, in going through their superstitious rites and false ceremonies, they concealed the lights, and, in the foulest and the most disgraceful manner, took pleasure the one with the other, according as they were inclined. It was Polo who led this devilish crew of sectaries, which began to increase marvellously, not only on this side the mountains, but also everywhere beyond them."

The Pope, at that time residing in France, excommunicated the sect; he sent a commissary with soldiers to Corsica, who gave the Giovannali, now joined by many seigniors, a defeat in the Pieve Alesani, where they had raised a fortress. Wherever a Giovannalist was found, he was killed on the spot. The phenomenon is certainly remarkable; possibly the idea originally came from Italy, and it is hardly to be wondered at, if among the poor distracted Corsicans, who considered human equality as something natural and inalienable, it found, as the chronicler tells us, an extended reception. Religious enthusiasm, or fanatic extravagance, never at any other time took root among the Corsicans; and the island was never priest-ridden: it was spared at least this plague.