Sampiero Corso

Sampiero de Bastelica , known as Sampiero Corso or Sampieru Corsu , born the May 23rd 1498 with Bastelica and dead the January 17th 1567), was the first figure of the Corsican Nationalisme. It is, with Pascal Paoli and Napoleon i, most famous of the Corsica S.

Commoner, although his mother is of minor nobility (Cinarchese da Bozzi) but nonbasic extraction, the Corsican big boss began at 14 years in the military career, serving Jean de Médicis, then the pope Clément VII and, in 1530, Hippolyte de Médicis.

Starting from 1535, its destiny and that of its family will be attached to the Maison of France. It covers glory in the armies of François I {{er}}, fights at the sides of Bayard, and receives, in 1547, the rank of colonel, ordering the whole of the “ Corsican bands ” with the service of king François Ist.

As the use wanted it at the time, it receives the nickname of Corso, which indicates its country of origin and which remains attached to its fame. It draws from its military talents and its bravery to the combat an important richness.

In 1545, it marries, at the 47 years age, a noble young person insular, Vannina d' Ornano, 15 years old.

In the fight for supremacy in Europe that the two continental great powers of then are delivered, France aims at securing a strategic platform in Corsica enabling him to weaken the Spanish enemy through his ally gênois and Henri II decides to bring its assistance to Sampieru for the first military forwarding to Corsica.

In 1553, with the head of a free-Turkish alliance, Sampieru unloads in the island and manages to raise the standard of the revolt. With its allies, of Ornano, family of his Vannina wife, it rejoins with him the people, the families of the capurali and the lords.

It gains some successes over Gênois ordered by the admiral Andréa Doria, but this war turns short because France is worried by the bringing together between the England and the Spain.

The crown points out the marshal of Terms and Sampiero in 1555. An armistice is concluded with Vaucelles in 1556 and puts an end to the hostilities for five years.

Corsica will remain, with the help of the reoccupying of Bastia and Calvi by Genoa, still French possession during four years, managed mollement by the general Giordano Orsini (sometimes “francized” in Jourdan of Ursins), member of a Roman big family and which had been used under the orders of the marshal as Terms.

The French defeat of Saint-Quentin in 1557 and the signature of the Traité of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559 will precipitate the return of Corsica in the bosom of Genoa. During the signature of the treaty, the French emissary try well to preserve the island at the crown, but they must give up it to preserve Calais, Metz, Toul and Verdun.

Named governor of Aix-en-Provence in 1560, Sampiero Corso is then named extraordinary Ambassadeur in Turkey by the king of France.

Having left his wife and her children in her residence of Marseilles, the young woman morfond and lets herself handle by the tutor of her children, the abbot Ombrone Michel-Angel, spy gênois. Vannina sells the goods of Sampiero then and embarks for the ligure capital. Having learned, her husband made intercept the ship. He then judged his wife and condemned it to death. It accepted the sentence, only begging it to strangle it rather its own hands than to deliver it to the lace of the torturer, which made Sampiero.

With the support of Catherine de Médicis, Sampieru returns to Corsica in 1564 to the head of a small Corsican troop and Gascon mercenaries. Once again it gains some not very significant combat, but is quickly insulated, without the assistance of France and exhausts its forces. The population is wearied and the big families make defection and join in Genoa.

The family of Ornano offered two thousand ducats of gold to which would bring back the head of the colonel while Genoa promised four thousand of them. It falls into a ambush, the January 17th 1567, at 71 years. Among the Corsican mercenaries with the service of Genoa three cousins of his wife were. Its head is exposed by Gênois to Ajaccio.

His/her son Alphonse d' Ornano will be Marshal of France.

Its life and especially the history of the drama of its couple was the subject of a opera Sampiero Corso , written by Henri Tomasi, created with the Large Theater of Bordeaux, the May 6th 1956.

The legend wants that Shakespeare took as a starting point the history of Sampieru strangling his guilty Vannina wife of treason, after this one had required to die with its hands to create the character of Othello…

References

Michel Rod-Franceschi, Antoine-Marie Graziani, Sampiero Corso, 1498-1567: a European mercenary with the , Ajaccio, A. Piazzola, 1999, ISBN 9782907161503
Jacques Rombaldi, French Corsica with. Sampiero Corso, general colonel of the Corsican infantry to the service of France , Paris, E. Lechevalier, 1887
Arrigo Arrighi, History of Sampiero Corso: or, War of independence, 1553-1569 , Bastia, Fabiani brothers, 1842

External bonds

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