Francesco Mulas , head of the School Office of the Consulate General in Johannesburg, continues to think about the story of Giovanni Maria Angioy. Interest in the Alter nos has never died down. There is a revival of studies on the impulses that animated his action in Sardinia and in Paris where the hero of the Sardinian Revolution (“ a large movement that was authentically revolutionary because it radically questioned the cornerstones of the system in force in the countryside”, according to the historian Federico Francioni) spent a period of painful exile.
How did your interest in Angioy arise?
"Writing the book on the noble history of my family, I came across Don Felice Mulas Rubatta, an adventurous companion in the struggles of Angioy. Like him, many other distant relatives of mine paid dearly for this loyalty and unity of mind and action. Don Felice in particular helped Angioy escape from exile in Casale Monferrato. From here I retraced the thread that led Angioy first to continental Italy, then Marseille, Lyon and, finally, Paris."
She wrote an essay on Angioy’s Parisian residences, published in 2023 in the magazine “Quaderni bolotanesi”.
«Angioy had several homes during his Parisian life. Rue Froidmanteau at number 3, on the right bank of the Seine, was the last domicile where, as a guest of Madame Dupont, he dictated his last will and died on 23 February 1808. The street and house number are reported in several documents, including the funeral expenses invoice kept at the Parish of Saint-Germain L'Auxerrois, the place of the funeral. The problem was to identify the exact location of the apartment, which was later demolished along with the entire street. In the vast Archives de Paris I found the cadastral maps of the neighborhood, updated to the new house numbering system of 1805. Therefore, by digitally superimposing the cadastral map with a map of Paris taken at the end of the 18th century and a satellite photo, I identified the exact spot where he died, which today falls within the Richelieu wing of the Louvre and where it would be interesting to place a tombstone».
Is the burial site still to be identified?
"After the funeral rite, attended by politicians and senators, a convoy left, led by a horse-drawn hearse for an unknown destination. We know, however, that the cemetery regulations of the time were very strict. Those who died in 1808 on the street of Angioy, belonging to the first arrondissement of the time for odd-numbered numbers, were buried in the old cemetery du Champ-du-Repos, which was already full and in the process of being closed. Today that place no longer exists, because it was obliterated and included in the Montmartre Cemetery. However, some tombstones seem to have been moved to the new cemetery. In my opinion, this is where the research should start again."
The Parisian archives continue to provide important clues. What needs to be done to give further impetus to research on Angioy's exile and shed light on aspects that still need to be clarified?
"As I mentioned before, there is a huge amount of data and metadata in the various archives in and around Paris. It is a matter of identifying documents, interpreting them and following a technique similar to that of a detective, through hypotheses and confirmations. I am thinking of a relaunch based on the attribution of theses to students and young researchers, with a coordinated effort."
How much can technology help?
«Information technologies are fundamental, especially in the face of a growing digital heritage, increasingly connected to the Internet. These tools support the researcher, whose critical work remains irreplaceable».
How can you coordinate your research with that of other scholars?
"There are quite a few people who have tried their hand at finding Angioy's Parisian traces. My training is scientific and this is the method I follow. I believe that coordination should refer to an open science perspective, through sharing data and citing sources. We need to build a solid database of information on Alternos, fishing for information in an ocean of data."
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At this moment two researchers, who do not belong to the academic world, Francesco Mulas and Adriana Valenti, scholar and writer, to whom we owe other very precious information on the years of Angioy's exile in Paris, are contributing to shedding light on a central figure in Sardinian history. They confirm, with the data they are acquiring, that the Sardinian revolutionaries are perfectly inserted and connected with the European history of the late eighteenth century. "Sardinia anticipates the three-year Italian revolutionary period. The anti-feudal uprisings upset old balances of power", said the journalist Vindice Lecis, author of the book "L'Alternos. The novel of the Sardinian revolution".
