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used for this research are mostly unpublished.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.
