Alla ricerca di un asilo: gli emigrati francesi a Venezia durante la Rivoluzione

Deprived of the right of asylum for supporting the monarchy and opposing the revolution, French émigrés lived under the condition of «political strangers». They could not return to their homeland, as they risked death penalty. Furthermore, they had to move from one country to another, pressured by the advance of republican armies and by the threats of French diplomats, who demanded their expulsion from the places where they had found refuge. The neutral Republic of Venice was one of those. Through the interaction between its government and diplomatic agents of the French Republic, peculiarities and contradictions of the émigré status can be investigated. Moreover, all information recorded by Venetian authorities can be used for a global analysis of the French arrived in Venice at the very end of the eighteenth century.