French Rule In The States Of Parma 1796 1814 Working With Napoleon Doina Pasca Harsanyi full chapter pdf docx

French Rule in the States of Parma,
1796-1814: Working with Napoleon

Doina Pasca Harsanyi
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/french-rule-in-the-states-of-parma-1796-1814-workin
g-with-napoleon-doina-pasca-harsanyi/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Global History with Chinese Characteristics: Autocratic

States along the Silk Road in the Decline of the
Spanish and Qing Empires 1680-1796 Manuel Perez-Garcia
https://ebookmass.com/product/global-history-with-chinese-
characteristics-autocratic-states-along-the-silk-road-in-the-
decline-of-the-spanish-and-qing-empires-1680-1796-manuel-perez-
garcia/
French Liberalism and Imperialism in the Age of

Napoleon III Miquel De La Rosa
https://ebookmass.com/product/french-liberalism-and-imperialism-
in-the-age-of-napoleon-iii-miquel-de-la-rosa/
Global History with Chinese Characteristics: Autocratic

States along the Silk Road in the Decline of the
Spanish and Qing Empires 1680-1796 1st ed. Edition
Manuel Perez-Garcia
https://ebookmass.com/product/global-history-with-chinese-
characteristics-autocratic-states-along-the-silk-road-in-the-
decline-of-the-spanish-and-qing-empires-1680-1796-1st-ed-edition-
manuel-perez-garcia/
The Global Rule of Three: Competing with Conscious

Strategy Jagdish Sheth
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-global-rule-of-three-competing-
with-conscious-strategy-jagdish-sheth/
Working with Goals in Psychotherapy and Counselling
Mick Cooper
https://ebookmass.com/product/working-with-goals-in-
psychotherapy-and-counselling-mick-cooper/
Prosecution of the President of the United States: The

Constitution, Executive Power, and the Rule of Law 1st
Edition H. Lowell Brown
https://ebookmass.com/product/prosecution-of-the-president-of-
the-united-states-the-constitution-executive-power-and-the-rule-
of-law-1st-edition-h-lowell-brown/
The Wisdom of Napoleon Hill Napoleon Hill
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-wisdom-of-napoleon-hill-
napoleon-hill/
Napoleon Hill: Adversity & Advantage: Achieving Success

in the Face of Challenges Napoleon Hill
https://ebookmass.com/product/napoleon-hill-adversity-advantage-
achieving-success-in-the-face-of-challenges-napoleon-hill/
Regional Organizations and Democracy, Human Rights, and

the Rule of Law: The African Union, Organization of
American States, and the Diffusion of Institutions
Sören Stapel
https://ebookmass.com/product/regional-organizations-and-
democracy-human-rights-and-the-rule-of-law-the-african-union-
organization-of-american-states-and-the-diffusion-of-
WAR,
CULTURE AND SOCIETY,
1750–1850
French Rule in the

States of Parma, 1796–1814
Working with Napoleon

War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850
Series Editors
Rafe Blaufarb
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL, USA
Alan Forrest
University of York
York, UK
Karen Hagemann
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC, USA
The series aims to the analysis of the military and war by combining politi-
cal, social, cultural, art and gender history with military history. It wants
to extend the scope of traditional histories of the period by discussing war
and revolution across the Atlantic as well as within Europe, thereby con-
tributing to a new global history of conflict in the eighteenth and nine-
teenth century.
For more information see: wscseries.web.unc.edu
More information about this series at

https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14390
French Rule in the

States of Parma,
1796–1814
Working with Napoleon
Dept of History, Powers Hall 106
Central Michigan University
Mount Pleasant, MI, USA
ISSN 2634-6699 ISSN 2634-6702 (electronic)

War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850
ISBN 978-3-030-97339-1 ISBN 978-3-030-97340-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97340-7
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Anna and Michael
Preface
I started working on this study some years ago almost by accident. One of
the main characters in Lessons from America, a book on French émigrés in
the United States I published in 2010, was Médéric Louis Elie Moreau de
Saint-Méry. One year after returning from the United States to France in
1800, Moreau was nominated adviser to the court of the duke of Parma,
and immediately afterwards, Administrator General of the duchies of
Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla. Following Moreau’s career trail seemed a
promising avenue and I travelled to Parma with the intention of beginning
research for a political biography. The treasure troves I found in the
archives and libraries of Parma, Piacenza and neighbouring communities
soon induced me to change my plans. The more I read, the more this
archival bounty persuaded me to delve into the historical experience of the
States of Parma during the French era (1796–1814). The present book is
the result of those inquiries.
Mount Pleasant, MI Doina Pasca Harsanyi
vii
Acknowledgements
I am delighted to acknowledge at long last the many debts I incurred

while working on this book. David Laven has cheerfully, and ever so tact-
fully, steadied my first forays into Napoleonic scholarship: he has always
been kindness itself and I am so pleased to have a chance to thank him.
The debt I owe to Patrice Gueniffey can never be repaid, but it is a joy to
put in writing my gratitude for these many years of constant generosity
and friendship. At different times, following the rhythms of academic
gatherings, I had the good fortune to discuss my work with Rafe Blaufarb,
Alex Grab, Ruth Godfrey, Rozzy Hooper-Hammersley, Peter Hicks, Marc
Lerner, David Markham, Edna Muller Markham, Alex Mikaberidze and
Ron Steinberg. I could not be more grateful for their freely given advice
and considered comments that made me rethink what I thought I knew
and see more clearly the path this project was taking. My colleagues in the
history department at Central Michigan University have been models of
patience and altruism as they listened to me talk about Parma, Napoleon
and not much else: a heartfelt thanks to all. In Parma, warm appreciations
are owed to the personnel at Biblioteca Palatina and the Archivio di Stato,
even more to Valentina Bocchi and Luigi Pelizzoni, a librarian’s librarian
who will find the answer to any question. I hope this book will go some
way to convey my gratitude for the delightful conversations where profes-
sors Marzio Dall’Acqua, Claudio Bargelli and Carla Corradi Martini gra-
ciously shared their boundless knowledge and love for Parma’s past.
Meeting Wallis Wilde Menozzi and Paolo Menozzi was one of those
strokes of luck one does not deserve but one accepts eagerly and
wholeheartedly.
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank Palgrave Macmillan’s anonymous reviewers for insight-

ful recommendations that greatly improved the final version of the book.
It was a pleasure working with Emily Russel, Steve Fassioms and Eliana
Rangel, whose professionalism and unfailing courtesy did much to smooth
the transition from manuscript to publication.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Prelude to Napoleon 9
3 Parma and Bonaparte 31
4 From Duchies of Parma to States of Parma 53
5 Watershed: The Insurrection 77
6 Explanatory Narratives: Brigandage107
7 Pacification137
8 Order into Chaos163
9 Wooing the Elites195
10 Elite Collaboration213
11 The End of the Road: Conclusions241
xi
xii Contents
Bibliography255
People Index277
Place Index283
Abbreviations
AMAE Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris

AMD Archives du Ministère de la Défense, Vincennes
AN Archives Nationales Paris
ASPc Archivio di Stato Piacenza
ASPr Archivio di Stato Parma
BP Biblioteca Palatina Parma
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
In December 1805, a violent insurrection broke out in mountain villages

around the city of Piacenza in the States of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla,
a territory under French control although not fully included in the
Napoleonic Empire. Authorities were taken aback. It defied reason that,
only days after the much-publicized victory at Austerlitz, disparate bands
of rural rebels arose at the sound of ancient alarm bells ringing across the
Apennines (campana a martella) to test the will of the French state and its
army. Although an isolated event, the violent popular rebellion forced
senior imperial administrators and Napoleon himself to turn their atten-
tion to a peripheral territory best known for apathy and inertia.
The Duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, commonly referred to
as the States of Parma, stood rather incongruously on the margins of
French-dominated Italy. A territory of about 6000 square kilometers, with
a population of little more than 420,000 inhabitants (426,512 in 1815),
tucked between the Piedmont, the duchy of Milan, Genoa and Tuscany,
the small state had changed hands between the Hapsburgs and the
Bourbons since 1731, when the Farnese line (rulers by papal decree since
the sixteenth century) died out.1 Eventually, the duchies settled for Spanish
guardianship at the Treaty of Basel (22 July 1795). In 1796, when General
1
For data concerning the surface and the population throughout the French occupation,
see Lorenzo Molossi, Vocabolario topografico dei Ducatti di Parma, Piacenza e Guastalla
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
D. P. Harsanyi, French Rule in the States of Parma, 1796–1814,
War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97340-7_1
2 D. P. HARSANYI
Bonaparte launched the First Italian campaign, Parma was undergoing a

conservative restoration, in sharp contrast with the Enlightenment-minded
reorganization carried out in Milan and Tuscany. Anxious to secure Spain’s
neutrality, the Directory (the French government as of 1795) instructed
General Bonaparte to refrain from any interference in the political status
quo in Parma. Consequently, the duchies missed the political shakeup of
the sister republic phase—the only exception to the policy of revolution-
izing conquered territories during the First Italian campaign. Alone in
Northern Italy, Duke Ferdinand remained on his throne until his death in
1802, the year when—to paraphrase Victor Hugo—Napoleon was burst-
ing through Bonaparte. Still undecided on how to deal with this peculiar
situation, he sent Moreau de Saint-Méry to Parma, with orders to intro-
duce vigorous French reforms without obliterating traditional institutions
and without disturbing existing social hierarchies. The insurrection of late
1805 amply proved that being simultaneously in and out of the French
web was not a workable arrangement, not in an increasingly centralized
empire. Emperor (as of 1804) Napoleon switched gears, abandoned the
pretense of autonomy and propelled the States of Parma on a track of
accelerated conversion into a French department. He and his local repre-
sentatives considered the process completed in 1808 when the territory,
renamed the Department of Taro, was absorbed in the imperial system. Or
rather, the new department absorbed the imperial system, efficiently and
durably: upon surveying the first years of post-Napoleonic Europe, David
Laven and Lucy Riall established that it was in the duchies that ‘the most
complete loyalty to the Napoleonic tradition was found’.2 Probing how
and why a periphery long at odds with the political movements swirling
outside its borders turned into a model of Napoleonic integration was the
starting point of this study.
Broadly speaking, two methodological paths tackle the Napoleonic
period in Italy: modernization and colonialism. Both grapple with the
double-sword nature of French rule, the mix of good and bad features
that gave the regime a Janus face, in Alexander Grab’s inspired formula.3
(Parma: Tipografia Ducale, 1833–1834). The above quoted data, listed for the year 1815,
on pp. 24–25.
2
David Laven and Lucy Riall, ‘Restoration Government and the Legacy of Napoleon’ in
Napoleon’s Legacy. Problems of Government in Restoration Europe. Edited by David Laven
and Lucy Riall (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 1–26 (10).
3
‘Napoleon’s rule over Europe possessed a Janus face, combining reform and innovation
with subordination and exploitation’. Alexander Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of
Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 19.
1 INTRODUCTION 3
Modernization approaches tend to focus on the good.4 Early monographs

addressed the period’s political conflicts, legal frameworks and philosophi-
cal debates, and treated Napoleon’s government there as the opening act
for Italy’s unification in a modern state.5 By the second half of the twenti-
eth century, historians had turned their gaze to signature Napoleonic
administrative and judicial innovations, which cut through regional par-
ticularities to impose a uniform, centralized, secular governing apparatus
throughout the peninsula—in short, kicking off the transition to a mod-
ern social order.6 As Anna Maria Rao concluded in an excellent
4
See Mark Elvin, ‘A short definition of ‘Modernity’?’ Past and Present, 113 (Nov. 1986):
209–213, on the difficulties of settling for a precise definition of a concept he qualifies as
‘elusive’ despite its ubiquitous use. John Breuilly has reviewed the main directions of mod-
ernization theories and suggested ways to avoid the pitfall of determinism in ‘Modernisation
as Social Evolution: The German Case, c.1800–1880’ Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society, 15 (2005): 117–147. Slippery as the term modernization is, it will continue to
inform our understanding of the Napoleonic period mainly because the historical actors
involved believed in it, even though they did not use the same terminology. See the brief
discussion in Philip Dwyer and Alan Forrest, ‘Napoleon and His Empire: Some Issues and
Perspectives’, the introduction to the volume Napoleon and His Empire. Europe 1804–1814,
edited by Philip G. Dwyer and Alan Forrest (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006),
1–16 (9–10).
5
Benedetto Croce’s historicism inspired many investigations focused on the movement of
ideas and the evolution of theoretical models. A good overview of Crocean historicism can
be found in David D. Roberts, Benedetto Croce and the Uses of Historicism (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987). Landmark monographs: Vittorio Fiorini and Francesco
Lemmi, Il Periodo Napoleonico 1799–1814 (1900); Francesco Lemmi, Le origini del risorgi-
mento italiano (1789–1815) (1906). Notably, Lemmi extended the analysis to the
Enlightenment in the second edition of the work: Le origini del risorgimento italiano
(1748–1815) (1924). Later studies inspired by Lemmi’s intellectual framework: Giorgio
Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia Moderna, vol. I ‘Le origini del Risorgimento’ (Milano:
Feltrinelli, 1956); Carlo Capra, L’Età rivoluzionaria e napoleonica in Italia (Torino:
Loescher, 1978). Antonino de Francesco’s recent work has focused on the Napoleonic era’s
impact on the political culture in the peninsula: Antonino De Francesco, L’Italia di Bonaparte.
Politica, statualità e nazione nella penisola tra due rivoluzioni, 1796–1821 (Torino: UTET,
2011); Storie dell’Italia rivoluzionaria e napoleonica, 1796–1814 (Milano: Mondadori 2016).
6
In a detailed review, Steven Englund paid homage to Stuart Woolf’s pioneering examina-
tion of European integration for opening up the field to innovative historical studies that
amount to ‘nothing less than a scholarly renaissance in terms of quantity, quality, and novelty
of approach …. They have so decisively redirected the river of Napoleonic scholarship that it
no longer bypasses places named society, culture, administration, economy, education, all of
which are now, thanks to them, known to be as important as the older, more familiar ports
of call (constitution, civil code, conscription, high politics, etc.)’. ‘Monstre sacré: the question
of cultural imperialism and the Napoleonic empire’ in The Historical Journal, 51, 1 (2008):
4 D. P. HARSANYI
istoriography review, innovative methodologies greatly enriched our

h
understanding of the moving parts that built the Napoleonic system in
Italy, but ‘questions of historical interpretation have remained basically
the same’.7
Michael Broers’ prodigious work, beginning with The Napoleonic
Empire in Italy: Cultural imperialism in a European context? (2005),
trained the spotlight on the not so good, namely on the inescapable fact
that the Napoleonic empire was a state born of military conquest, gov-
erned by force, principally to the benefit of France. As such, Edward Said’s
orientalist thesis or historical anthropologist Nathan Wachtel’s concepts of
acculturation and integration pertaining to the European expansion in
Africa and Asia supply critical insights into the way the French accumu-
lated, exercised and eventually lost power. Broers amply showed that cat-
egories borrowed from colonialism studies are especially helpful in
dissecting the Napoleonic empire’s governing techniques, ranging from
soft to hard, always geared towards coercion and control. The first step:
ralliement, a form of integration that ‘implied a wide-ranging societal
acceptance and approval of Napoleonic values and institutions’ on the
assumption that enough Italians could be persuaded to ‘absorb French
laws, institutions and mores without prompting and coercion’. Ralliement
generally moved towards amalgame or ‘a policy entailing active participa-
tion in the regime and thus, submission to its mores’.8 Ideally, the ensem-
ble of administrative tactics culminated in acculturation or assimilation to
215–250 (217–218). Englund referred to Stuart Woolf, Napoleon’s integration of Europe

(London and New York: Rutledge, 1991). For the Italian Peninsula, influential monographs
include Pasquale Villani, Italia Napoleonica (Torino: Loescher, 1973); Livio Antonielli, I
Prefetti dell’Italia Napoleonica: Repubblica e Regno d’Italia (Bologna: IL Mulino, 1983);
John A. Davis Italy in the Nineteenth Century, 1796–1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000) and Conflict and Control: Law and Order in Nineteenth-Century Italy (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 1988); Alexander Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). See also the impressive collective work Italia
Napoleonica: Dizionario Critico, edited by Luigi Mascilli Migliorini (Torino: UTET, 2011).
In addition, many regional studies narrowed the focus to examine the interactions between
local practices and imperial institutions.
7
Anna Maria Rao, ‘Old and New Trends in Historiography’, in Napoleon’s Empire.
European Politics in Global Perspective. Ute Planert editor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2016), 84–100 (86).
8
Michael Broers, The Napoleonic Empire in Italy, 1796–1814. Cultural Imperialism in a
European Context? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 23 and 123–124. The concept
of ralliement builds on Nathan Wachtel’s concept of integration understood as unforced
incorporation of foreign elements into indigenous systems.
1 INTRODUCTION 5
the centralized, scientific, secular, bureaucratic, that is, modern, model of

state and society in which the French took so much pride.
As I worked my way through the voluminous files preserved at the State
Archives in Parma under the laconic heading ‘The French in the states’
(Francesi negli stati), complementary insights from modernization and
colonialism methodological threads helped me grasp the intricacies of life
under French occupation in this distinctive periphery. What intrigued me
most was Broers’ statement that the French experiment in Italy ended in
failure: ‘The failure was to adapt French rule in ways that suited Italians
enough to acculturate, not one caused by a lack of effective control of the
periphery by the centre, at least in the obvious sense of preponderant
power. Yet fail they did’.9 With this disconcerting assertion ringing in my
ears, I returned to the archives with new questions: What counted as fail-
ure and what as accomplishment during the 12 years of French rule in the
States of Parma? Who decided on the matter? To the point, what did the
French think they were doing in this corner of Italy compared with what
the Parmense thought the French were doing in their country? Looking
for answers, I examined side-by-side local and French documents regard-
ing the same set of circumstances. The archives and libraries in Parma and
Piacenza are brimming with local testimonies to the French period: cor-
respondence, diaries, and awkwardly worded reports from village mayors
and priests, alongside diplomatic statements composed in polished French
by Parmense notabilities. For the French side, I traced, from the same
local archives to the National Archives, Ministry of Defense Archives and
Foreign Affairs Archives in Paris the private writings and official records
left by the French executives in place.
The Napoleonic period in Parma has attracted modest historical scru-
tiny, compared with neighbouring Liguria, Tuscany or the Kingdom of
Italy. The archival material is still lightly processed—indeed, I believe part
of the impact of this book will come from unearthing a wealth of fascinat-
ing primary documents. Parmense historians tend to see the French occu-
pation as a transitional episode sandwiched between the more alluring
times of Bourbon rule and Maria Luigia’s reign. Surveys of Napoleonic
Italy typically mention in passing an ‘also annexed’ territory that joined
the empire in 1808.10 The relative marginalization stems from the unusual
9
Broers, The Napoleonic Empire in Italy, 2.
10
A few recent articles have examined aspects of Napoleonic rule in the States of Parma,
but interested readers must go back to the early twentieth century to find monographs of the
6 D. P. HARSANYI
position on the Napoleonic chessboard, which, however, also accounts for

Parma’s relevance to the study of French-dominated Europe. Due to
international arrangements, the territory turned into a laboratory for
political experimentation. Successive French governing teams oscillated
between hands-off policies and intensive assimilationist schemes; the hesi-
tancy forced all executives in charge, and at times Napoleon himself, to
improvise and rethink key elements of the imperial agenda. Locals became
experts at scrutinizing, and making sense of, fluctuating if relentless out-
side pressures. Even when open revolt broke out, as in the case of the
Apennine insurgency, there was no compact on the anti-French front.
Rather, the insurrection brought to the surface deeply buried fractures as
the citizenry split into pro- and anti-insurgent camps; the rebels them-
selves squabbled over their own motivations and objectives. Crucially, elite
ambivalence—an issue discussed in depth in this book—more than made
up for popular resentment and complicated political calculations. The
hardest part of life under Napoleonic occupation was not finding ways to
fight it: it was separating the potential for a new beginning from the
exploitative opportunism of the French state. Imperial administrators, on
their side, were no less torn. Caught between Napoleon’s changing
demands and the unpredictable reality on the ground, they struggled to
be good occupiers, as they understood it: to bring good laws to people
accustomed to bad laws and uphold the promises of an enlightened polity.
For Napoleon’s representatives, the hardest part was not putting down
rebellions and imposing the French order; it was deciding the ratio
between fulfilling their law enforcement duties and staying true to the
progressive governance ethos that justified their power to alter the lives of
people they had never laid eyes on. The Napoleonic system restructured
identities and compelled both the French administrators and their admin-
istrés to negotiate with themselves before negotiating with each other. The
way this happened in the atypical circumstances of the States of Parma
weaken the aura of French invincibility. It revealed scores of vulnerabilities
concealed under the imperial swagger; quite to the surprise of all involved,
entire period. Lenny Montagna, Il dominio Francese a Parma 1796–1815 (Piacenza: 1926);
Vincenzo Paltrinieri, I moti contro Napoleone negli Stati di Parma e Piacenza (1805–1806).
Con altri studi storici (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1927); Umberto Benassi, Il Generale Bonaparte
ed il Duca e i Giacobini di Parma e Piacenza (Parma: Deputazione di Storia Patria, 1912).
For current explorations see especially the contributions to the volume Storia di Parma,
vol.V. I Borbone: fra illuminismo e rivoluzioni. A cura di Alba Mora (Parma: MUP, 2015).
1 INTRODUCTION 7
this made the administrative machinery more intelligible and easier

to handle.
French administrators and local residents tacitly agreed that there was
something unique about an occupation, which, in Carlo Zaghi’s words,
‘triggered, at all levels, reflections, perplexity, rethinking, hopes, and fer-
ments’.11 Both sides had a stake in making a success of this extraordinary
experience; however, the meaning of success varied with the ‘hopes and
ferments’ that different groups, French and Parmense, placed in the
French system. Recent research has emphasized the necessary collabora-
tion between occupiers and occupied in Napoleonic Europe. I draw on
these findings, but I argue that, beyond pragmatic deal making, citizens
availed themselves of French ambivalence to interpret on their own terms
the model of society landed in their midst. Despite the undeniable power
imbalance, developments we now categorize as ralliement, amalagame,
assimilation or indeed modernization did not just happen to them: local
groups and individuals actively participated in the way French-imposed
innovations worked—or not, as the case may have been—on the ground.
To return to Michael Broers’ inference of failure: the French may have
failed to adapt their system to suit Italian interests; in their turn, Italians—
Parmense in this case—did not fail to adapt the French system to suit their
idea of what the future of their society should be. This study’s main objec-
tive is to evaluate local capacity for agency and identify the strategies
Parma’s residents deployed to inflect to their advantage policies made in
Paris and not necessarily with their interests in mind. The book does not
have the ambition to be a complete monograph. The archive-driven nar-
rative explores the workings of successive French administrations through
the parallel lenses of Napoleonic officials and Parmense citizens, with the
focus on collaborative processes that eventually shaped the Napoleonic
era’s legacy. To this end, each chapter includes granular analyses of rele-
vant characters, events and occurrences that help distil day-to-day experi-
ences, big and small, into the constant give-and-take that made this period
so intriguing for all who lived through it and so rich in long-term
consequences.
A final note on the use of toponyms: the duchies were composed of
Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, but the latter played a lesser role compared
with Parma and Piacenza. During the first Italian campaign (1796)
11
Carlo Zaghi, L’Italia di Napoleone dalla Cisaplina al Regno. Storia d’Italia diretta da
Giuseppe Galasso (Torino: UTET, 1968), vol. 18, 100.
8 D. P. HARSANYI
Bonaparte ignored the duchies’ neutrality and redistributed parts of

Guastalla as the French army redrew borders and swapped territories.
Moreau de Saint-Méry’s administration essentially ignored the city. On 30
March 1806, Napoleon awarded Guastalla and its environs to his sister
Pauline who briefly enjoyed the title Duchess of Guastalla. Soon thereafter
(24 May 1806) the Kingdom of Italy purchased the territory. For all these
reasons, Guastalla is not included in the present book, the events discussed
here concerning mainly Parma, Piacenza and their respective regions.
Until 1808 when it became the Department of Taro, the country’s official
name was States of Parma, which tends to overlook Piacenza. For conci-
sion’s sake, I follow custom and use either Parma or Parma–Piacenza to
refer to the entire territory, and Parmense to refer to all the inhabitants.
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from French and Italian
are mine.
CHAPTER 2
Prelude to Napoleon
The Duchy of Parma was established in 1545 by Pope Paul III for Piero
Luigi Farnese, presumably his own illegitimate son. With the city of
Piacenza added the next year, the state was henceforth called the Duchies
of Parma and Piacenza and ruled by the Farnese until the dynasty went
extinct in 1731. Elizabeth Farnese, the last direct heiress of the family,
married king Philip of Spain, a Bourbon, in 1714 and bequeathed the
duchies to her son Don Carlos de Bourbon. Diplomatic-matrimonial
games in the wake of the War of the Polish Succession complicated the
situation: at the Treaty of Vienna (1738) Don Carlos agreed to give up the
duchies in exchange for the larger, more prestigious kingdom of Naples
and Sicily. He did not forget to take with him large collections of artwork
along with the entire archive of the Farnese dukes, the former an act of
naked robbery, the latter a thoughtless deed that caused untold subse-
quent administrative difficulties. Francis Stephen of Habsburg, Duke of
Tuscany, took over provisionally until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748)
stipulated the return of the duchies, enriched with the territory of Guastalla
(a former Gonzague fief) to the Bourbons: Carlos’ younger brother Philip
accepted the throne and founded the House of Bourbon-Parma. The for-
mal name of the state became the Duchies of Parma, Piacenza and
Guastalla. In the meantime three Bourbon Family Pacts (1733, 1743 and
1761) negotiated the fine points of the duchies’ loyalty to Spain and

Switzerland AG 2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97340-7_2
10 D. P. HARSANYI
France equally. The marriage between Duke Philip and Louise Elisabeth,
oldest daughter of Louis XV, tipped the scales towards France.
Louise Elisabeth, only 12 years old the year of her wedding (1739),
spent nine years in Madrid, to be groomed into a Spanish royal bride. Her
attachment to France never weakened and her first independent act upon
acceding, with her husband, to the throne of the Duchies of Parma,
Piacenza and Guastalla was to visit her father at Versailles.1 Back in Parma,
she gave birth to her only son, Infant Ferdinand (1751).2 Ferdinand would
grow into a puzzling character and a weak, though stubborn, ruler.
Throughout his childhood, he watched his mother put all her energies
into fashioning the duchies in the image of France—the France of the
lumières imagined by the philosophes Louis XV’s daughter very much
admired. In this short time, she succeeded: Duke Philip had little appetite
for governing and left most decisions to his wife. By the second half of the
century, foreign visitors likened the duchies to a mini-France transplanted
in Northern Italy, with its own Paris—the capital city of Parma—and its
own Versailles at the ducal residence of Colorno, both re-designed by
French architects and artists.3 Love for France was the most precious leg-
acy Louise Elisabeth bequeathed to her son whom she expected to con-
tinue her life’s work: ‘I am French, my son […] When I am no more, you
will better judge my motives; if I live, I hope that my conduct will prove
to you that my duty is my first love. Love France, my son: your roots are
there; you owe the country respect and deference for being who you are’.4
1
More details can be found in Henri Bédarida, Parme dans la politique française au
XVIIIème siècle (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1930), 104–144.
2
Ferdinand had two older sisters. Isabelle Bourbon-Parma (1741–1763) married Austrian
Archduke Joseph, future Emperor Joseph II. Cultured and intellectually curious, she left
several essays on education, marriage and politics. She was a dutiful wife but stood out at the
court in Vienna for conducting a rather open homoerotic affair with her sister-in-law Maria
Christina, Archduchess of Austria and an artist of some note. Isabelle de Bourbon-Parme
(Bruxelles: Racine, 2002) by Ernest Sanger is a well-researched, sympathetic biography.
Maria Luisa (1751–1819), a far less interesting character, married her cousin Infant Charles,
future Charles IV of Spain. Many entertaining details on the three siblings in the collective
biography: Juan Balansò, Les Bourbons de Parme. Histoire des Infants d’Espagne, ducs de
Parme (Biarritz: J&D Editions, 1996), especially pp. 30–70.
3
Il Viaggio a Parma. Visitatori stranieri in età farnesiana e borbonica. Testi raccolti da
Giorgio Cusatelli e Fausto Razzetti (Parma: Ugo Guanda Editore, 1990).
4
Letter from Louise Elisabeth to her son Ferdinand written in 1759 (no exact date), in
Casimir Stryenski, Le Gendre de Louis XV. Don Philippe, Infant d’Espagne et Duc de Parme.
D’après des documents inédits tirés des Archives de Parme et des Archives des Affaires
Etrangères (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1904), 440. The entire letter is reproduced on pp. 436–444.
2 PRELUDE TO NAPOLEON 11
Ralliement Avant la Lettre

The transformation began in 1749, with the appointment of Guillaume
Du Tillot (1711–1774), a little-known French clerk employed at the
Spanish court, to the position of councilor to Duke Philip. Within a
month, Du Tillot rose to the rank of General Intendant of the Household,
in charge of the court’s expenses and book-keeping. Ten years later
(1759), the duke nominated Du Tillot prime minister and essentially
handed him over the reins of government. Marquis of Felino as of 1764,
Du Tillot ran the duchies, unhindered, until 1771, and earned a European-
wide reputation for competence and honesty, the very model of a well-
meaning bureaucrat able to steer any society on the path to progress.5
Local historians have carefully examined Du Tillot’s 20 years at the helm
of what contemporaries regarded as exemplary enlightened administra-
tion; these studies portray sympathetically a well-intentioned man bravely
taking on the Herculean task of overhauling an order of things he found
harmful to the people and to their rulers alike. ‘Nothing, absolutely noth-
ing escaped his knowledgeable, genial, and tireless innovations and
reforms’, wrote Umberto Benassi, summarizing the historical consensus.6
Overall, Du Tillot’s rule consisted in wielding the power of the state to
launch a holistic programme of systematic reforms meant to restructure
every aspect of life in the duchies, from fiscal policies to agricultural prac-
tices, public education and cultural initiatives—an audacious undertaking
historian Massimo Ammato aptly labelled ‘social and economic
5
Du Tillot perfectly fits the type of well-intentioned government official in tune with the
philosophical aspirations of his time drawn in Carlo Capra, ‘The Functionary’ in
Enlightenment Portaits. Michel Vovelle editor. Translation Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1997), 316–355. On Du Tillot, see Umberto Benassi, Guglielmo
Du Tillot. Un ministro riformatore dell secolo XVIII (Parma: Presso la Rivista Deputazione di
Storia Patria, 1919); Bernardino Cipelli, ‘Storia dell’amministrazione di Guglielmo Du
Tillot. Con introduzione di E. Casa’in Archivio Storico per le province parmensi, serie I, II
(1893); Charles Nisard, Guillaume Du Tillot. Un valet ministre et sécrétaire d’état. Episode de
l’histoire de France en Italie 1749–1771 (Reprint Adamant Media Corporation, 2001);
Giovanni Tocci, Il Ducato di Parma e Piacenza. Un Colbert alla corte di Parma’ in Storia
d’Italia. Diretta da G. Galasso (Torino: UTET, 1987), Vol XVIII, 79–103 (88–89). A digest
of contemporary opinions on Du Tillot in Henri Bédarida, Parme et la France de 1748 à 1789
(Paris: Honoré Champion, 1928. Slatkine Reprints), 100–116. The discussion of Du Tillot’s
entire career is on pp. 71–120. Very informative too is the analytical overview by Claudio
Maddalena, ‘Il governo del ministro du Tillot’ in Storia di Parma, vol. V, 101–138.
6
Umberto Benassi, Storia di Parma da Pier Luigi Farnese a Vittorio Emmanuele II
(1545–1860) (Parma, Luigi Battei, 1907), 162.
12 D. P. HARSANYI
engineering’.7 Vast as the programme was, the prime minister treaded

lightly whenever possible because, as Claudio Bargelli showed in a recent
astute analysis, the vision of enlightened ideal city ran frequently into the
reality of financial constraints and decidedly unidealistic political power
struggles.8 The cautious step-by-step policy fits the political practice of
ralliement outlined by Michael Broers for Italian territories conquered by
the French armies, later absorbed into the Napoleonic state. The duchies
were, throughout Du Tillot’s tenure, an autonomous state under French
and Spanish protectorate, Du Tillot himself serving at the pleasure of local
sovereigns. Still, considering the free hand he enjoyed for 20 years and his
systematic efforts at modernizing Parmense society by means of injecting
new content into pre-existing structures, his actions were consistent with
an early experiment in ralliement. Overt assumptions of French superior-
ity, more precisely of the France of Louis XV being the right kind of state
for the right time, underpinned Du Tillot’s entire agenda. His closest
advisers came from France to join a cast of French-speaking, French-
educated local collaborators. In the historical arc between the beginning
of the Bourbon reign and the fall of the Napoleonic regime, the interval
dominated by Du Tillot (1749–1770) comes across as a dress rehearsal,
heavy in forewarnings, for the future travails of French administrators
struggling to integrate the duchies into the Napoleonic system. For this
reason, it is worth recalling, briefly, just how extensive, and how thor-
ough, Du Tillot’s project was, and how swiftly it collapsed.
Administration, Legislation and Tax Collection

The duchies consisted of two halves, each run by a governor, one in Parma
and one in Piacenza. The governors presided over all aspects of public life,
from law and order mechanisms to commercial regulations and tax collec-
tion. At the local level, in Parma, Piacenza and several smaller urban cen-
tres, the citizenry relied on the civic corps of the Anzianati, composed of
the most notable residents, that is, nobles joined by well-regarded prop-
erty owners and professionals. A podestà, or mayor, assisted by
7
Massimo Amato, ‘L’ingegneria economica e sociale di Guillaume Du Tillot’ in Parma e
il suo territorio. Un Borbone tra Parma e Europa. Don Ferdinando e il suo tempo. A cura di
Alba Mora (Parma: Diabasis, 2005), 136–143.
8
Claudio Bargelli, La Città dei lumi. La petite Capitale del Du Tillot fra utopie e riforme
(Parma: Monte Università Parma, 2020).
commissioners, ran every commune, large or small, and reported to the

governor or to the nearest Anzianato. Justice was dispensed through a
layered system of magistrates (uditori civili e criminali) that converged
into several councils or local courts, the highest court being the supreme
council established by Alessandro Farnese in 1589.9 Du Tillot left all
administrative and legal structures untouched and patiently worked with,
rather than against, existing institutions. What he asked these institutions
to do, however, went against entrenched habits and traditions. The years
spent as intendant of the ducal household, with the mission of improving
the state’s finances, persuaded him that expanding the tax base was essen-
tial to the survival of the state. This implied curtailing the massive fiscal
privileges feudal landlords, and above all the clergy, had enjoyed since the
Farnese era. Du Tillot launched his premiership with demands that Church
revenues be subjected to state taxation. What seemed at first glance a tech-
nical financial alteration soon turned into a metaphysical struggle between
two worldviews.10 It was a struggle Du Tillot did not seek but could
hardly avoid.
Two fifths of the land in the Piacentino region, two thirds in the Parma
region, and fully half of all arable land in the Borgo San Donnino were in
the hands of the clergy. Ownership of such vast properties came with no
taxation, no supervision and an array of additional entitlements. Tactfully,
the prime minister sought cooperation from the papacy by means of his
9
Details online of Farnese and Bourbon institutions in Giovanni Drei, l’Archivio di Stato
di Parma. Indice General, storico, descrittive, ed analitco (Rome: Biblioteca Arte Editrice,
1941), 103–114.
10
By the mid-1700s members of the clergy comprised roughly 10% of the population of
Parma and up to 14% in the Piacenza region, all organized in 91 churches, and 21 female and
18 male convents, one more conservative than the other according to Franco Venturi,
‘Parma e Europa’ in Settecento Riformatore, Vol. II La Chiesa e la Repubblica dentro i loro
limiti 1758–1774 (Torino: Einaudi, 1976), 214, and Roberto Ghiringhelli, Idee, Società ed
Istituzioni nel Ducato di Parma e Piacenza durante l’età illuministica (Milano: A. Giuffrè,
1988), 12. This was up from the 15 male and 24 female convents in the duchies at the end
of the Farnese era: Umberto Benassi, Storia di Parma da Pier Luigi Farnese a Vittorio
Emmanuele (1545–1860) (Parma: Luigi Battei, 1907), 125. The Farnese dukes ‘spoiled’ the
clergy and accustomed its members and its orders to privileges they came to regard as invio-
lable rights. In time, the Farnese had reasons to regret their generosity: Ranuccio II, for
instance, was aghast at the clergy’s refusal to contribute towards the tribute imposed on
Parma by Emperor Leopold II during the wars between France and the Empire (1691–1694).
By then the status quo had become unshakeable and the duke could do nothing but vent in
fits of helpless fury. Benassi, Storia di Parma da Pier Luigi Farnese a Vittorio
Emmanuele, 68–70.
14 D. P. HARSANYI
favourite tactic, attuned to the encyclopaedic spirit of the times: carefully

compiled studies, based on empirical data that spelled out the devastating
effects of clerical privileges upon local communities. These were sent to
the Holy See in hopes that scientific proof of damages to poor villagers
would mollify papal resistance. Disappointingly, the pope replied with a
steady stream of rebuttals that reaffirmed the validity of clerical fiscal
rights. Judging that he had showed sufficient deference, Du Tillot broke
the stalemate in 1764, with prammatica della manimorte. The law abol-
ished the ancient practice of mortmain, which allowed feudal lords—indi-
viduals or syndicates such as ecclesiastic orders—to appropriate the
inheritance of their serfs or subordinates; the legislation also targeted cur-
rent contracts not yet concluded. (It should be noted that in France the
mortmain or mainmorte was considerably weakened throughout the eigh-
teenth century, but officially banned only in 1790.) The real giunta della
giurisdizione created the following year went a step further in affirming
the state’s authority by quietly abolishing fiscal privileges for Church prop-
erties.11 A new supervisory body called regio consiglio segreto, composed of
a minister of state and three councilors, valiantly took on the confusing
maze of privileges and established a tax farm based on the French model.
This and a few other measures, like taxes on leather products starting in
1765, eventually improved returns.
In essence, then, fiscal reform amounted to winning a few financial and
legislative battles with the Church, to applause from local and French phi-
losophes always happy to see the Church put in its place. Duke Philip did
not exactly cheer but chose to stand on the sidelines and allow bureaucrats
to replenish the state’s coffers as they saw fit. The duke proved a lot less
amenable when it came to cuts into his own budget or to changes in rou-
tines he cared about. Highlighting the arbitrary nature of reforms exe-
cuted under less than reliable absolutist rulers, personal tastes weighed
heavily on public policies. Informed that improving agricultural output
depended on making more land available for pasturing, Philip simply
refused to limit the domain set aside for pleasure hunting.
11
Pierluigi Feliciati, ‘La dominazione borbonica a Parma’ in L’Ossessione della memoria.
Parma settecentesca nei disegni del Conte Alessandro Sanseverini. A cura di Marzio dall’Acqua
(Parma: Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Parma, 1997), 19.
Agriculture and Industry

Nudging into change people reluctant to give up longstanding privileges
was bound to disappoint. Du Tillot put his trust, or rather his hope, in the
persuasive capacities of scientific studies. The method foreshadowed
Moreau de Saint-Méry’s penchant for empirical surveys and yielded very
similar results. The prime minister shared with landowners what he learned
from the investigations he commissioned. First, primitive agricultural
techniques largely accounted for inadequate outputs. A case in point: not-
withstanding abundant grape harvests over the 1773–1779 period, wide-
spread ignorance regarding bottling and preserving wine inevitably caused
a good deal of the wine production to go to waste. Prices fell not because
of diminishing demand but because growers felt compelled to sell before
the wine turned (Parma–Piacenza is home to the popular Lambrusco
wines). Second, the large wolf population made it hard to increase the
flocks, but this nuisance paled in comparison with the aggravations caused
by numberless internal custom dues that hindered transhumance. The
wolves could be dealt with; feudal privileges remained intractable: feudal
landowners rejected attempts to limit or tax herds moving on private
lands, on grounds that such taxes ran against what they considered ances-
tral rights.
Economic historian Pier Luigi Spaggiari emphasized throughout his
work the inertia of noble owners of fiefs, suspicious of the minister’s
enthusiasm for habit-altering reforms. The few slightly better off peasants
who owned land lacked access to capital and, in any event, were too
absorbed with their own survival to risk implementing changes shunned
by their social superiors.12 No wonder, then, that the administration’s
carefully drafted studies produced little more than an academic analysis
with next to no impact on either the development of Parmense agriculture
or the standard of living of inhabitants trapped between ‘fraud and
scarcity’.13 With government recommendations ignored, attempts at
12
Pier Luigi Spaggiari, L’Agricoltura negli Stati Parmensi dal 1750 al 1859 (Milano: Banca
Comerciale Italiana, 1966), especially pp. 41–42, 86–88 and 94–95.
13
See Claudio Bargelli, ‘Le Terre di Montagna tra frode e miseria. La vita quotidiana nel
ducato di Parma nel secolo dei lumi’ in Aurea Parma, 83, 2 (magio–agosto 1999): 265–284.
The fraud involved mainly widespread smuggling. In a different study, Bargelli highlighted
Du Tillot’s concern that deprivation might worsen to the level of famine, which led him to
monitor the grain trade, establish emergency barns and even resort to imports. Claudio
Bargelli, ‘Ubertose messi e pubblica felicità. Il commercio dei grani a Parma nel settecento’
16 D. P. HARSANYI
reform did not go further than occasional experiments undertaken, on

their own properties, by the few who needed no prompting, such as the
philanthropist count Stefano Sanvitale.14 Lack of cooperation further
thwarted Du Tillot’s ambitious plans for capitalizing on the fame of local
varieties of cheese as well. For one thing, the army’s needs for fresh meat
limited the herds raised for milk, a problem compounded by a series of
devastating epizooties (1703, 1713, 1738 and 1746). As mentioned
above, Duke Philip’s love of hunting killed the ambition of founding
state-run cheese factories. In the meantime, stiff Lombard competition
forced Du Tillot to resort to import tariffs to protect local specificity and
discourage illegal sales.15 Introducing the culture of the potato was the
only agricultural innovation adopted with relative ease.
Industrial projects did not fare much better. As an unwelcome side
effect, they set in motion waves of social discontent that gradually swelled
into anti-French animosity, something that the prime minister simply did
not think about. He certainly assumed locals would be glad to see, and
work in, the textile factories set up around the duchies (Piacenza, Guastalla
and Borgo San Donino). What he did not expect was that residents would
resent being patronized by the numerous French artisans summoned to
instruct them and by the French managers placed in charge of all aspects
of the business. Silk manufacturing, for instance—the prime minister’s
favourite economic branch—was entirely run by French craftsmen brought
over from Lyon. In time, this branch expanded enough to be considered
a success, but in general, industrial initiatives suffered from the perception
of being an imported pastime for resident foreigners.16
in Aurea Parma, 82, 2 (maggio–agosto 1998): 149–183. On everyday life in the Parma area
in the eighteenth century, very illuminating is Spaggiari’s analysis of a census commissioned
by Du Tillot: Pier Luigi Spaggiari, ‘Famiglia, case e lavoro nella Parma del Du Tillot. Un
censimento del 1765.’ Studi e ricerche della Facoltà di Economia e Commercio. 3, (1966):
163–236.
14
Spaggiari, L’Agricoltura negli Stati Parmensi dal 1750 al 1859, 99.
15
See Claudio Bargelli, ‘Una vaccheria benedettina tra Sei e Settecento: l’organizzazione
produttiva casearia del cenobio di S. Giovanni Evangelista di Parma’ Aurea Parma, 2 (mag-
gio–agosto 2007): 213–238, for an illuminating economic analysis of one exemplary cheese
factory run by Benedictine monks from the fifteen through late eighteenth centuries. The
article also offers a very helpful survey of the literature dedicated to the history of Parmesan
cheese-making. See also the comprehensive survey by the same author: Claudio Bargelli,
Dall’empirismo alla scienza. L’agricoltura parmense dall’età dei lumi al primo conflitto mon-
diale (Trieste: Ed. Goliardiche, 2004).
16
A few prominent local businessmen, such as Pietro Cavagnari, took over the silk manu-
factures. Marcello Turchi, ‘La fiorente industria della seta: imagine essenziale della Parma del
Cultural Policies
In his examination of Du Tillot’s social-engineering agenda, Massimo
Amato underscored the utopian nature of the entire endeavour: in the
context of the Enlightenment’s belief in rational reforms, Du Tillot was a
dreamer.17 Indeed, who but a dreamer would believe strongly enough in
the power of reason to take on the Church, keep trying to spread the tax
burden, and launch well-meant economic initiatives in the face of stub-
born resistance and bitter animosity? Let us add to Amato’s list the no less
extravagant programme of reshaping, or re-engineering, to use the same
terminology, Parma’s cultural landscape. Duke Philip heartily approved:
the prime minister’s ambitions in such matters hurt no privileges, required
no sacrifices of himself, and offered the duchies a chance to repair the
damage caused by his brother’s spoliations. Luckily for Du Tillot, the
duke was too indolent to notice his minister’s steady drive towards secu-
larizing all aspects of life in the duchies.
State-sponsored cultural establishments materialized almost overnight.
The Academy of Fine Arts, with statutes modelled on the French institu-
tion of the same name, opened its doors in 1752, followed by the Academy
of Parma, likewise a replica of French academies, in December 1757.18
Soon thereafter Gazzetta di Parma started bringing the news to interested
readers (January 1760). The discovery of the Tabula Alimentaria came as
a dream opportunity for Parma’s scholarly community to claim its rightful
place on the European scene.19 Duke Philip gave his accord for the Ducal
Museum of Antiquities (now the National Archaeological Museum of
Du Tillot’ in Parma Economica, 4 (Dicembre 1987): 19–24. For details on French business
activities in Parma see Bédarida, Parme et la France de 1748 à 1789, 179–186; pp. 121–186,
on the entire French presence in the duchies during Du Tillot’s administration. The ubiqui-
tous presence of French managers made it difficult for local would-be entrepreneurs of mod-
est means to access capital. Spaggiari gives the example of one Giuseppe Tassi who stressed
the difficulties of enrolling sceptical villagers in long-term projects when called on by Du
Tillot to provide capital to poor farmers for raising sheep for wool, the raw material for a
factory he intended to set up. Spaggiari, L’Agricoltura negli Stati Parmensi dal 1750 al
1859, 42.
17
Amato, ‘L’ingegneria economica e sociale di Guillaume Du Tillot’ art.cit, 140.
18
The Academy of Fine Arts soon earned a European-wide reputation with annual paint-
ing, sculpture and architecture competitions, opened to artists from all European countries.
Francisco Goya, a young artist just starting out at the time, sent a painting for the 1771
competition; he did not win the prize, but his later fame bolstered Parma’s prestige.
19
The discovery of the Tabula Alimentaria at Veleia in 1747 prompted the beginning of
archeological digs meant to rival the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompei. The large
18 D. P. HARSANYI
Parma), founded in 1760 to coordinate further excavations at Veleia, and

for a new Royal Library (now Biblioteca Palatina) opened to the public in
1761. Du Tillot selected the learned Paolo Maria Paciaudi, freshly returned
from a year of studies in Paris, for the dual position of director of the
museum and chief librarian of the Royal Library, responsible for acquisi-
tions and cataloguing in both places.20 In 1768, Du Tillot invited the
printer Giambattista Bodoni to set up shop in Parma, with generous gov-
ernment financial backing. Bodoni quickly became an international celeb-
rity, widely admired for his technical prowess and stylistic creativity, his
studio a tourist attraction on a par with the works of Parma’s beloved
Renaissance painter Correggio.21 French architects and artists flocked to
the duchies’ capital to design and decorate, in French neo-classical style,
buildings fit to house the new institutions.22 It all amounted to an artistic
bronze tablet dating from 101 CE details administrative measures regarding welfare and
food distribution.
20
A Théatin priest influenced by Jansenist ideas and familiar with French intellectual
approaches, Paciaudi (1710–1785) was exactly the kind of local aide Du Tillot was looking
for. Indeed, a few clergymen generally receptive to Jansenism and hostile to the Jesuits
responded to his entreaties, most importantly Adeodato Turchi, Archbishop of Parma, and
Pietro Capellotti, Archpriest of Momigliano, the latter already pursued by the Inquisition for
his liberal views. Crucial support came as well from the distinguished magistrates Giacomo
Maria Schiattini, president of the chamber of magistrates, Aurelio Terrarossa, professor of
law, Giambattista Riga, and count Girolamo Nasalli. They were joined by respected histori-
ans Ireneo Affò and Giuseppe Pezzana, the latter appointed first editor of Gazzetta di Parma.
The commitment of this important segment of the educated classes helped Du Tillot stare
down papal intransigence.
21
For a well-researched recent biography and commentary on Bodoni’s contributions to
the printing arts, see Valerie Lester, Giambattista Bodoni: His Life and His World (Boston:
David R. Godine, 2015).
22
Appointed chief architect with the mission of rebuilding the ducal palace, Ennemond
Petitot arrived in Parma in 1753. Later, he built the grand gallery of the Biblioteca Palatina
in neoclassical style and launched several urbanism projects until Du Tillot’s dismissal sent
him into untimely retirement. A French duo, architect Pierre Contant d’Ivry and sculptor
Jean Baptiste Boudard, were hired to modernize the ducal park at Colorno in the 1750s,
which resulted in statue alleys and sculptural groups reminiscent of Versailles. Boudard also
taught at the Academy of Fine Arts and helped train many artists who emulated his aesthetic
principles. His neo-classical sculptures are still on display in Parma’s main park, Parco Ducale.
Marco Pellegri, G.B. Boudard Statuario Francese alla Real Corte di Parma (Parma: Luigi
Battei, 1976). There is a vast bibliography on Petitot and his work in Parma. For quick refer-
ence see the illustrated biography Giuseppe Cirillo, Petitot (Parma: Grafiche Step Editrice,
2008). For a study on the transformation of the urban landscape in Carlo Mambriani, see ‘La
Città Ridisegnata’ in Storia di Parma, vol. V, 139–179.
and intellectual awakening, with the educated classes keenly involved in the
project of turning Parma into a high-culture hub. Du Tillot did not stop
there. His greatest ambition and top priority, which he prudently did not
bring up until 1768, was an out-and-out transformation of education in
the duchies. Like financial reforms, such a transformative project could not
be accomplished without fighting, once more, the power and the influence
of the Church, and hence not without controversy and multiple hurdles.
The University of Parma

The grand cultural makeover did not lack for enemies. The Society of
Jesus swiftly emitted the charge of heresy on the entire government of
Parma for allowing reformists to disrupt an order of things that, so far as
they were concerned, needed no changes. On 30 January 1768, Pope
Clement XIII weighed in with a monitorium that strongly condemned Du
Tillot’s entire administration.23 However, the winds of change favoured
Du Tillot’s way of thinking: fellow Bourbon-ruled states (France, Spain
and the Kingdom of Naples) had already suppressed the Jesuit order. What
better time to eliminate the Jesuits from leadership positions in Parma
too? Duke Philip died in 1765, and while his son and successor Ferdinand
leaned strongly towards obeying papal injunctions, he was not yet eman-
cipated from his prime minister’s tutelage. To Du Tillot’s relief, the decree
of expulsion of the Society of Jesus, issued on 3 February 1768 and pub-
lished on 9 February in Gazzetta di Parma, met with general indifference.
The Jesuits, it turned out, could not rely on the affections of the public to
save themselves. Still, the editorial took pains to minimize the magnitude
of the event and spare the feelings of Jesuit sympathizers: ‘Our Prince
protects the Religion first and the Letters afterwards. The proscription of
the Jesuits will leave no void among us. Ministers and instructors have
been appointed to each sacred ministry formerly exercised by Jesuits and
to each chair they used to hold’.24
23
Venturi, ‘Parma e Europa’, 219–222. The very interesting correspondence between Du
Tillot and Parma’s ambassador at Versailles, baron d’Argental, revolves mainly on the strat-
egy to be used for peacefully driving the Jesuits out of Parma. See Carminella Biondi, ‘La
Correspondance Du Tillot—d’Argental’ in Carminella Biondi, La Francia e la Parma nel
secondo settecento (Bologna: CLUEB, 2003), 103–171.
24
As quoted in Chiara Burgio, ‘L’attività culturale di P.M. Paciaudi nella Parma del Du
Tillot e lo suo ‘Memorio intorno la Biblioteca Parmense” Aurea Parma, LXIV (April 1980):
6–39. See also Venturi, ‘Parma e Europa,’ 223.
20 D. P. HARSANYI
With the Society of Jesus out of the way, Du Tillot’s main collaborator
Paciaudi rushed to publish a new academic constitution which spelled
clearly the goals of the reformed schools: ‘…the public education of youth
must prepare useful citizens to the Fatherland, able ministers to the
Church, faithful subjects to the Sovereign, all to the ornament and benefit
of the State’. The new set of rules established the principle of public
schools, state sponsored from the elementary level to university, with a
uniform curriculum and textbooks approved by the (supposedly enlight-
ened) government. Scientific education, modern languages and civics
formed the core curriculum; scholastics was abolished as a subject of study,
replaced by selections from Saint Augustine’s and Thomas Aquinas’ works.
Enlightened circles in France and Italy rejoiced; not so Pope Clement
XIII, who promptly declared null and void, on ecclesiastic grounds, the
entire reform of the education system. In response, Gazzetta di Parma
published a government decree that forbade all printers in the duchies to
print and disseminate the pope’s verdict.25 Both the French and the
Spanish courts remained unmoved and took the papal bluster as proof of
Rome’s weakness, since no similar censure had been directed towards
greater powers like, precisely, France and Spain. Hazard further played
into Du Tillot’s hands: exceeded by events, the pope summoned a consis-
tory to deal with calls for the total abolition of the Society of Jesus, but the
project was forgotten upon his sudden death on 2 February 1769. The
subsequent three-month conclave gave Du Tillot the opportunity to
reduce the number of clerical congregations and convert their assets to
secular institutions of public assistance. Finally, he also took advantage of
the papal hiatus to abolish the tribunal of the Inquisition, a courageous
break with the past that nonetheless went almost unnoticed in the shadow
of the grand educational project.
For all the clamour, the Jesuit College converted into the University of
Parma with relative ease, an orderly transition even more impressive since
the changes went very far indeed. To take just one telling example, the
hiring of Claude François Xavier Millot (1726–1785), nominally a Jesuit
25
Voltaire did not miss the opportunity to ridicule the papacy once more in a small pam-
phlet allegedly translated from the Italian, titled ‘Les droits des hommes et les usurpations
des autres’ (June 1768). As mentioned in Storia della Emilia Romagna, II, 457–468; Ugo
Gualazzini, ‘Per le scuole della ragion civile e canonica del ducato di Parma e Piacenza’ in
Archivio Storico per le Provincie Parmensi, 32 (1980): 352–362, and Burgio, art.cit.
abbot, but long estranged from the order, as principal instructor at the
university’s new chair of history left no doubt that the education of young
Parmense was about to take a new direction. Millot was selected for the
job on the strength of his Eléments de l’histoire de France (published in
1772), a book well received in scholarly circles for its accessible style and
its studious neglect of divine causes in explaining the march of history.
Millot took the appointment in Parma as a chance to change the teaching
of the discipline: as soon as he arrived, sacred history disappeared from the
curriculum in favour of a rational exposition of causes and motives behind
events, all in the interest of helping students understand human nature
and judge the past with ‘true philosophy’.26
Although firmly rooted in French intellectual soil, Du Tillot project
paralleled developments elsewhere in Italy, chiefly in neighbouring
Tuscany and Lombardy, and in Naples further to the south, where state-
directed reforms reliant on the latest scientific thinking pragmatically
aimed at ‘ameliorating society’, as Eric Cochrane defined Peter Leopold’s
enlightened despotism in Florence.27 It was a two-decade tour de force
meant to metamorphose the small state of Parma into a version of the città
ideale imagined by the minister’s philosophe friends. To bring this ambi-
tious vision down to earth one more piece of the puzzle needed to fall into
26
Venturi, ‘Parma e Europa’, 225. The work Millot accomplished in Parma resulted in his
book Eléments d’histoire de l’Angleterre, depuis son origine sous les Romains jusqu’au règne de
George II. Par M. l’abbé Millot, professeur en l’Université de Parme, des académies de Lyon
et de Nancy (Paris: chez Durand, 1769). The introduction extols the works of David Hume,
whom Millot strove to emulate.
27
Eric Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527–1800 (Chicago: Chicago
University Press, 1973), 461. Parma’s Philip was no Peter Leopold, but he did not interfere
with his minister’s agenda and allowed structural changes to take root. Albeit at reduced
scale, Parma’s reformist trajectory could also be compared with the systematic transforma-
tion of the state apparatus in the Duchy of Milan, masterfully examined by Carlo Capra:
Domenico Sella and Carlo Capra, Il ducato di Milano dal 1535 al 1796 (Torino: UTET,
1984. Volume 11 of Storia d’Italia under the direction of Giuseppe Galasso), 153–617.
Capra put the emphasis on the work of bureaucrats doggedly building an innovative system
of government in the face of hostility from traditional elites. This angle departs from the line
of interpretation championed by Franco Venturi, centred on the history of ideas and the role
of intellectuals. It would be impossible to even attempt to summarize in a footnote the rich
historiography of the Italian Enlightenment. For a survey of different currents of thought,
starting from Venturi’s influence and legacy, see Anna Maria Rao, ‘Enlightenment and
reform: an overview of culture and politics in Enlightenment Italy’, Journal of Modern
Italian Studies, 10, 2 (2005): 142–167.
22 D. P. HARSANYI
place: educating Ferdinand, future ruler of the duchies and son of Du

Tillot’s compliant master, into a philosopher-prince, capable of illustrating
by example the meaning of enlightened government.
The Education of the Infant

In a letter sent from Louise Elisabeth in Versailles to her husband Philip,
Duke of Parma, she announced that she had made her choice of a tutor for
their son Ferdinand. The honour fell upon Etienne de Condillac
(1714–1780), a personality of the Parisian Republic of letters with a great
reputation for erudition and intellectual depth. At the time of the appoint-
ment, he had already penned his major works: Essai sur l’origine des con-
naissances humaines, Le Traité des systèmes, Le Traité des animaux and Le
Traité des sensations. Parma’s Jesuits expressed bitter frustration at losing
such a prestigious assignment to an almost declared Deist, frequent guest
of philosophical salons and cherished friend of Diderot, Rousseau and
Voltaire. But Condillac had not contributed to the Encylopédie and claimed
to be a reasonable empiricist, not an intractable philosophe. This was
enough to reassure the daughter of Louis XV who in turn reassured her
husband of Condillac’s fitness for the job: ‘our son must be a good
Catholic, not a doctor of the Church; it would be of no use to him to
examine all sorts of [religious] controversies’.28 In Parma, Condillac was
welcomed by Auguste de Kéralio (1715–1805), supervisor of the Infant’s
education for the previous two years, during which time he tutored his
august pupil in mathematics, geography and the rudiments of civil engi-
neering. The teaching team included astronomer Jérôme Lalande
(1732–1807) for the exact sciences and Alexandre Deleyre (1726–1796)
for the humanities. Deleyre, a lapsed Jesuit, who made a name for himself
with contributions to Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, also served
as Condillac’s assistant, in which capacity he was asked to ‘summarize the
works of all the friends of humanity’ according to his somehow plaintive
description of his tasks in a letter to Rousseau dated 29 March 1761. Such
distinguished mentors raised even the hopes of Voltaire, who wrote to
28
Louise Elisabeth’s letter to Philip of Parma, 25 March 1758, as quoted in Guerci,
Condillac storico, 52. Also reproduced in Bédarida, Parme et la France, 412. For Condillac
the appointment could not have come at a better time: in 1759 the Paris Parlement con-
demned the first seven volumes of the Encyclopédie, Hélvetius’ De l’Esprit and Condillac’s
Traité des sensations. By the time the verdict was issued, Condillac was already in Parma.
d’Alembert on 17 November 1760: ‘It seems that the Parmense Infant is

in good company. He will have a Condillac and a Leire [Deleyre]. If he
still becomes a bigot, the [divine] grace must be really strong’.29
Divine grace was strong indeed. In the beginning, things seemed to go
according to expectations. To his new teachers, the Infant came across as
an impressionable child, intelligent and eager to learn. He read the classics
alongside works of French and Italian literature; daily lessons mixed phi-
losophy, mathematics and physics with religious principles reliably voided
of superstition; with the help of Kéralio, who strove to be a friend as well
as a tutor, he plowed, planted and harvested a small field of wheat, to gain
first-hand experience of nature’s precise workings. Day after day, in a gru-
elling routine that would mystify our schools of education, vast chunks of
ideas, theories, facts and figures from all fields were poured onto
Ferdinand’s tabula rasa, with no regard for the abilities of a youngster in
his early teens to digest such complex information. In the belief that rea-
soned examination of the past opened the door to an enlightened future,
the study of history anchored the 16-volume Cours d’études Condillac
wrote in Parma, the core curriculum for a perfect education. One historian
described the experiment as ‘the dream of a philosopher-abbot who
wanted to shape his pupil, as he wanted to shape anyone who was to ben-
efit from his teachings, into an individual able to reason and to grow by his
own forces, thanks to vast learning and to the correct use of that marvel-
ous instrument of communication, analysis and synthesis that is human
language’.30 The final goal of the experiment was to help Ferdinand grow
into ‘an enlightened though unchallenged prince’: wise, tolerant, learned,
always mindful of the golden mean between tyranny and democracy.31
29
As quoted in Guerci, Condillac Storico, pp. 95 and 64, respectively. For a perceptive
examination of the larger ramifications of young Ferdinand’s education see Elizabeth
Badinter, L’Infant de Parme (Paris: Fayard, 2010). See also Alba Mora, ‘Don Ferdinando: ‘Il
Duca ‘fuori tempo” in Storia di Parma, vol V, 193–212.
30
Carminella Biondi, ‘Condillac a Parma. La lunga premessa al Cours d’études’ in La
Francia e la Parma nel secondo settecento, 59.
31
This was Du Tillot’s expressed hope. Guerci, Condillac Storico, 75 and Bédarida, Parme
et la France, 83–84. Once more, such views corresponded with contemporary developments
in Italy, where reforms occurred with support from absolutist rulers—Austrian rulers in
Milan and Tuscany—schooled in the new ideas of the times but never in doubt of their legiti-
macy to exercise power and to maintain control over the way changes unfolded. See Jacob
Soll’s examination of Peter Leopold’s utilitarian governing philosophy, a blend of Catholic,
absolutist and core Enlightenment principles. Jacob Soll, ‘The Encyclopedic Prince: Grand
Duke Peter Leopold (1747–1792) and the Meaning of Tuscan Enlightenment’ in Florence
24 D. P. HARSANYI
Early indications that the young duke was on the verge of validating the
hopes invested in him by his mother, his tutors, his two royal uncles and
the better part of the Republic of letters were all deceptive. Within a year,
the disappointing reality sank in. Impervious to either persuasion or physi-
cal punishment, both of which he received in ample doses, Ferdinand
spent all the time and energy he could steal from his progressive studies to
visit priests, indulge his taste for miracles and relics, and design his bed-
room in the shape of a church. Matters only worsened when he became of
age to reign and worsened even further after his marriage to the Habsburg
princess Maria Amalia (1769). ‘I am told that this prince spends his days
visiting monks and that his superstitious Austrian wife will be the mistress
there. O, poor philosophie! What will be your fate!’ exclaimed Voltaire in a
letter dated 15 October 1769. A few months later Pietro Verri wrote to his
brother, Alessandro, that any hopes Condillac might have still harboured
were irremediably thwarted; hence, the illustrious philosophe left the duch-
ies in disgust, together with Kéralio. Millot resigned his post before com-
pleting his three-year contract and left as well. ‘They had plenty of reason
to be astonished’, Verri wrote, ‘seeing that their pupil was so fond of the
Dominican brothers that he went to take his meals with them and sing in
their choirs and such’.32 Diderot pronounced the final verdict when he
recommended Condillac’s Cours d’études to Russia’s Catherine II with the
cautious remark that all that brilliance produced nothing but a ‘stupid
student’.33 ‘The religious duke’, concluded Umberto Benassi, ‘abandoned
his small soul full of scruples to the care of priests and monks’.34 Despite
the concerted efforts of some of the most brilliant minds of the time, the
After the Medici. Tuscan Enlightenment, 1747–1790. Edited by Corey Tazzara, Paula Findlen
and Jacob Soll (New York: Routledge, 2020), 317–335. While Ferdinand’s all-French teach-
ing team favoured French models, they were surely aware of Peter Leopold’s reputation as
exemplary enlightened ruler, the kind their pupil was expected to become thanks to his
progressive education. No less a figure than d’Alembert voiced the eagerness with which
‘those who enlighten nations’ awaited Ferdinand’s accession to the throne. Badinter,
L’Infant de Parme, 68–70. D’Alembert wrote in response to Ferdinand’s translation into
Italian, under Kéralio’s guidance, his discourse of reception to the Academy of Sciences (3
December 1768).
32
Both quoted in Guerci, Condillac Storico, 67.
33
Guerci, Condillac Storico, 68.
34
As quoted in Umberto Benassi, Il generale Bonaparte ed il Duca e I Giacobini di Parma
e Piacenza (Parma: Pressa la R. Deputaziona di Storia Patria, 1912), 23.
educational project came to nothing. As soon as he reached majority and

became sovereign with full powers in 1765, Ferdinand proceeded to sabo-
tage and eventually undo all the reforms of the last two decades.35
Dashed Hopes and the End of Reforms

Ferdinand found a kindred spirit in his wife, who emboldened him to turn
the Du Tillot page and move the duchies closer to his conservative sensi-
bilities. In addition, Maria Amalia rejected categorically any hint of finan-
cial discipline.36 France’s Louis XV found the couple’s transgressions
troublesome enough to convey his displeasure along with stern, though
affectionate—in the beginning—advice on the decorum a prince ought to
observe:
Believe, my dear son that your happiness depends entirely on your conduct.
It is natural that your youth should distract you at the very moment you are
leaving behind a too rigid system of education. The light-heartedness of
your age, the lack of experience of the princess you have married, too little
thought given to the decorum your condition requires—not unusual in the
first moments of freedom, have given rise to disorders that end up harming
you at European courts and to that you must remedy at once.
The way to remedy ‘the disorders’ was to ignore the various intrigues
woven around Du Tillot, whom the French king considered above
35
As Elizabeth Badinter has discussed in the last two chapters of L’Infant de Parme, the
pedagogical failure ended up calling into question the Enlightenment’s faith in the power of
ideas to mould human nature—or society, for that matter.
36
This was a great disappointment for Du Tillot, whose efforts at scrimping and saving had
been briefly supported by Ferdinand’s decision to allow all inhabitants to hunt, provided they
brought the hides of the animals to court for processing. This gave Du Tillot the great satis-
faction of registering 0 pounds for ducal pleasure hunting on the books for 1765 and the
following five years he served, for unlike his father, Ferdinand detested hunting. More sav-
ings on entertainment followed, but extravagance replaced prudence once the wedding with
Maria Amalia of Habsburg took place in 1751. The ceremonies alone opened an ‘abyss that
seemed impossible to fill’. Benassi, Guglielmo Du Tillot, 175–214. Du Tillot was forced to
establish a special economic office for the purpose of erasing the post-wedding deficit. The
exhausting squabbles between the young duchess and Du Tillot on the issue of household
expenses are chronicled by Benassi, who concluded that Maria Amalia brought nothing but
ruin and disorder to her new country, an opinion shared by all French observers, beginning
with King Louis XV himself. Benassi, Guglielmo Du Tillot, 223.
26 D. P. HARSANYI
reproach, as did Ferdinand’s other guardian, the king of Spain.37 Louis XV

sent to Parma a personal emissary, count Chauvelin, with instructions that
plainly illustrated how much he abhorred the extreme religiosity Ferdinand
felt free to exhibit.
The ambassador’s main task was to impress on the Infant that he stood
to lose both the allowance that maintained his lifestyle and the political
protection that guaranteed the survival of his states. The young duke
accepted the scolding and vowed to mend his ways. In actuality, by means
of deceptive obsequiousness mixed with persistent complaining, he man-
aged to have his way against his royal guardians’ judgement and wishes,
just as he had prevailed over several leading lights of the Republic of let-
ters. The final clash came at the end of 1770, when Du Tillot drafted four
decrees to cut back spending for religious purposes and limit the number
of monks admitted in monasteries. Any talk of further touching clerical
interests was unbearable to Ferdinand, so he set in motion the process of
expelling Du Tillot: members of all communities and corporations
throughout the duchies, including religious ones, were invited to come
forward with criticism of the minister’s methods. Smelling blood in the
water, many did just that. Placed under house arrest while a panel of three
judges examined the objections, Du Tillot sent his archives to the tutelary
courts of Spain and France. That both found the accusations baseless
made no difference to Ferdinand.38 Du Tillot quit the duchies in disgrace,
37
Letter from King Louis XV to Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, dated 1 November 1769, in
Lettres de Louis XV à l’Infant Ferdinand de Parme (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1938),
141–142. This is the first in a series of letters dealing with the ‘disorders’ brought about by
Ferdinand and Maria-Amalia’s concerted efforts to undermine the administrative team
headed by Du Tillot.
38
The instructions to the French envoy sent to assess the charges against Du Tillot clearly
expressed the king’s puzzlement: ‘It is not at all credible that the marquis de Felino, who has
justified the place he occupies and who has also been regarded by the deceased Infant Don
Philip as a very honest person and zealous servant of his master, has suddenly embraced dif-
ferent principles and a different philosophy under the successor of this Prince’. However, the
French and the Spanish kings agreed to investigate the matter; having done so, both pro-
nounced Du Tillot not guilty and a victim of vicious persecution at the hands of disgruntled
courtiers. ‘Mémoire pour servir d’instruction au sieur comte Dufort, commandant de l’ordre
royal et militaire de Saint-Louis, maréchal de l’armée du roi, allant à Parme pour y exécuter
en qualité de ministre plénipotentiaire auprès de l’Infant Duc de Parme la commission
extraordinaire dont Sa Majesté l’a chargé. A Versailles, le 3 Juin 1771’. In Recueil des instruc-
tions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France depuis les traits de Westphalie jusqu’à la
Révolution française, Publiés sous les auspices de la Commission des Archives Diplomatiques
au Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1893) X (Naples et Parme), 231–234.
on the night of 19 November 1771; his most prestigious French associates

left too, and local supporters suddenly found themselves out of favour.39
It all fell apart with astonishing speed. Religious orders regained their
privileges and their clout; although the Society of Jesus was not formally
reinstated, many of its members returned to the duchies and quietly filled
the teaching positions they had been forced to vacate. The tribunal of the
Inquisition was reinstated with full powers; the suppression of the mort-
main, Du Tillot’s most progressive piece of legislation, was revoked. Save
for the silk manufactures, plans for economic reforms came to a standstill.
With few notable exceptions, court circles cheered the prime minister’s
departure and applauded the return to an order of things where they fit
comfortably and unquestioningly. Immediately after Du Tillot’s depar-
ture, Piacentino patrician Gaetano Tedaldi drafted for the duke a plan for
turning back the clock—back to normal, as he saw it: Mezzo che si propone
per rimediare ai mali della presentanea Sovranità di Parma, Piacenza e
Guastalla (1772). It was a working paper of sorts that called first and
foremost for mending the link between local nobles and their sovereign,
the sacred bond Du Tillot had broken with his reliance on bureaucrats and
professionals. The duke should, Tedaldi insisted, select only born gentle-
men for all state functions, given that members of the nobility were edu-
cated in the spirit of honour, justice and love for their sovereign. For their
part, sons of the people should dedicate themselves to agriculture and
other useful crafts, their calling being to practise the same trade as their
fathers.40 Turning to recent changes in education, Tedaldi advised not
39
Paciaudi, for instance, briefly fell from grace in the wake of Du Tillot’s dismissal and was
replaced in 1771 by Angelo Mazza, with whom he had professional disputes regarding the
cataloguing process. However, the ducal wrath moderated within two years and Paciaudi was
able to resume his position. Countess Malaspina, a close friend, was exiled without having
been found guilty of any offence, an act of injustice that earned another firm reprimand from
Louis XV. ‘If this goes on, I see no reason why I should have an envoy at your court’, the
king finally shouted. ‘Letter of 9 September 1771’ in Lettres de Louis XV à l’Infant Ferdinand,
186. In the end, however, dynastic attachments prevailed, and Ferdinand was forgiven. He
did not hold grudges and allowed most associates of Du Tillot to return to the duchies on
condition that they keep a low profile.
40
The text is amply quoted and discussed in Ghiringhelli, Idee, Società ed Istituzioni nel
Ducato di Parma e Piacenza durante l’età illuministica, 13–19. It is remarkable how closely
Tedaldi’s assumptions of the nobility’s fitness for public service resemble those at the basis of
the Ségur ordinances issued in France in 1781, which likewise claimed that nobles, educated
in the spirit of honour, discipline and reverence for the king, made better soldiers then com-
moners, and hence the requirement of four quarters of nobility for admission to the officer
28 D. P. HARSANYI
eliminating but slowing down the teaching of sciences and the ‘new ideas’
introduced by the French philosophes. Modern education had its benefits
but should be limited to children of the nobility expected to run the state
on behalf of their sovereign. Finally, Tedaldi advised that all foreigners,
meaning all French nationals, be purged from the duchies so society could
find its way back to domestic tranquility without the constant irritant of
outside influences. In the same vein, the new director of finances, Girolamo
Obach, recommended a return to feudal fiscal policies on the grounds that
Du Tillot’s economic vision felt too alien to people accustomed to the old
ways—a comment that foreshadows popular exasperation with French
reforms at the beginning of the 1805–1806 insurrection.
Evidence of popular irritation with the French presence explains to
some extent why ducal officials chose to point the finger at the foreignness
of Du Tillot’s reforms. In 1750, the adventurer-writer Giacomo Casanova
passed through town for a couple of days. The shopkeepers’ grumbling
against recently arrived French residents who insisted on speaking their
language and imposing their taste made enough of an impression to be
included in his memoirs.41 A less illustrious chronicler, a barber by the
name of Sgavetti, wrote that in Parma foreigners were crowding out the
natives even in church. This, he noted, tongue in cheek, hindered the
spiritual concentration of Italian worshippers who could not help but
burst into laughter at the sound of ridiculous, to their ears, French musical
accompaniment.42 Du Tillot hardly noticed such sentiments, and when he
did, he chose to ignore them. Believing, with his ally Condillac, that
human nature was pliable, he never doubted that all social classes would,
in time, open their eyes to the beneficial nature of his well-meaning,
progressive reforms. The cheerful expectation that enlightened adminis-
trative measures had the power to transform peoples and societies reads
corps. See on this topic Caste, Class, and Profession in Old Regime France, by David Bien,
with Jay M. Smith and Rafe Blaufarb (St. Andrews: Centre for French History and Culture
of the University of St. Andrews, 2010), a revised and updated version of David Bien’s article
of 1974.
41
Casanova wrote that he only heard French spoken in the streets. Shopkeepers who
meekly offered to send for French-speaking attendants when he walked in were elated to find
out he was Italian. Mémoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt (Paris: FB Editions, 2014), II,
135–136.
42
The 1769–1772 section of Sgavetti’s diary has been published in Maria Montanari,
“L’età d’oro della Corte di Parma nella cronaca di un barbiere” Aurea Parma (marzo–aprile
1924): 103–107. The full document is preserved at the Archivio di Stato di Parma.
like a prelude to the ‘bureaucratic optimism’ that fuelled the daily exer-
tions of Napoleonic administrators.43 In the eyes of his contemporaries
though, this unshaken self-confidence was, as one sympathetic observer
wrote, the fatal flaw of a man of faultless character, the hidden virus that
destroyed the very foundations of his edifice: ‘It is a very big error for a
minister to project sumptuous creations, to fail to understand in depth the
capabilities of the locals, to not appreciate the true forces of the state, and
to believe he can force nature’.44 Much the same could be said of the
ambitions of French executives in Parma three decades later.
Reforms screeched to a halt almost as suddenly as they had started,
leaving Parma–Piacenza in cultural and political limbo. The conservative
switch rolled back the fiscal restructuring, reconfirmed the privileged sta-
tus of the nobility, and restored the Church to its traditional prominence.
The intellectual daring that Condillac and his supporters brought to the
duchies melted down to hushed, uncontentious conversations. Yet,
Ferdinand was not a tyrant and, as Giovanni Tocci rightly noted, his debo-
nair nature allowed literary and scientific research to go on—indeed, he
was rather fond of natural sciences himself—so long as such activities hurt
neither his religious sentiments nor the clergy’s interests.45 Accordingly,
the institutions created by Du Tillot lowered their horizons, avoided con-
troversy, and recruited Italian, not foreign, personalities, all the while con-
tinuing to receive state subventions.46 The University of Parma thought it
prudent to revert to an all-Italian staff, but maintained its funding and its
autonomy. Famed printer Bodoni too abandoned his international roster
in favour of Italian, preferably local, writers. Gazzetta di Parma still hit the
43
Michael Broers coined the term ‘bureaucratic optimism’ to define the ethos of
Napoleonic bureaucrats. ‘Les Enfants du Siècle: an empire of young professionals and the
creation of a bureaucratic, imperial ethos in Napoleonic Europe’ in Empires and Bureaucracy
in World History. From Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. Peter Crooks and Timothy
H. Parsons editors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016): 344–363 (362).
44
Report by Count Duranto Duranti, the Sardinian king’s ambassador, announcing Du
Tillot’s dismissal in 1771. The entire report has been reproduced in Aurea Parma, I (gen-
naio–marzo 1997): 73–87.
45
Giovanni Tocci, ‘Negli anni di Ferdinando’ in Un Borbone tra Parma e l’Europa. Don
Ferdinando e il suo tempo (1751–1802). A cura di Alba Mora (Parma: Diabsis, 2005), 71–95.
For a nuanced portrait see the collective volume Il bigotto illuminato: ricordo di Ferdinando
di Borbone. A cura di Giuseppe Bertini e Francesca Sandrini (Parma: Fondazione Monte di
Parma. Museo Glauco Lombardi, 2002).
46
Famed playwright Carlo Goldoni received a pension from the duke, perhaps so that he
could compete with the French at the French theatre that remained in operation.
30 D. P. HARSANYI
stands every day, albeit treating readers to increasingly bland news deliv-
ered in an apprehensive, restrained tone.47 More consequential than the
subdued cultural climate were Ferdinand’s complete abandonment of fis-
cal discipline and general disinterest in running his duchies. Affairs of the
state fell to ministers from whom the duke expected conformity and defer-
ence after Du Tillot’s hyperactive premiership. Financial operations went
little further than distributing subsidies received yearly from the tutelary
courts of France and Spain. For more than 20 years, Parma’s executive
worked in slow and cumbersome ways, out of step with energetic pro-
grammes of institutional overhaul in the immediate neighbourhood. The
resulting bureaucratic and fiscal opacity horrified all French administra-
tors, who invariably labelled the situation they found in Parma ‘chaos’ and
saw their work there as the ultimate test of professional endurance.
In sum, the duchies turned inward and abandoned their own reforms
at a time when cities and regions all around continued to carry out
Enlightenment-inflected changes. Elizabeth Badinter’s evocative image of
complacent lethargy ‘disturbed only by the rhythmic toll of church bells’
best describes the two decades that followed Du Tillot’s exile.48 The tran-
quility, or rather stillness, lasted until 1796, when French troops under
General Bonaparte marched into Northern Italy and Parma was thrown
into turmoil again.
47
‘Under the fearful Duke Ferdinand, after Du Tillot, Gazzetta di Parma turned from an
instrument to build consensus into an instrument to avoid dissensions’. 1796. Napoleone a
Parma. Ristampa Anastatica dell’annata 1796 della Gazzetta di Parma. A cura di Maristella
Carpi (Parma: PPS Editirice, 1977), 67.
48
Badinter, L’Infant de Parme, 154.
CHAPTER 3
Parma and Bonaparte
By 1796, when the Army of Italy marched into the Italian Peninsula, Spain
was acting as the sole custodian of the Duchies of Parma, Piacenza and
Guastalla, the French revolution having severed traditional ties with
France. Spain, therefore, spoke for the duchies in all diplomatic encoun-
ters and it was Spain’s Prime Minister Manuel Godoy, the Prince of Peace,
who committed Parma–Piacenza to passive neutrality on the political
scene that emerged in the wake of the French Revolution.1 Keen to remain
on friendly terms with Spain, the Directory decided to treat the duchies
more gently than the other entities in Northern Italy and asked General
Bonaparte to mind Spain’s interests and connections in the Peninsula. In
practice, the careful approach meant that the French did not engage with
sympathizers in the duchies while retaining the right to use local resources
as they saw fit.2 France’s politics resulted in a different experience of the
revolutionary triennio (1796–1799) and set the country apart throughout
the Napoleonic domination of Italy.
1
This was decided at the Peace of Basel (22 July 1795) and reaffirmed in subsequent trea-
ties with France.
2
Duke Ferdinand was not pleased and called repeatedly on his protectors, in plaintive
Spanish language letters, to ensure that he would not ‘lose anything and not be constantly
disturbed’. As quoted in Maria Victoria Lòpez-Cordòn Cortezo, ‘Le Realzioni con La
Spagna da Elisabeta Farnese a Napoleone’, in Storia di Parma V, 349–365 (362).

Switzerland AG 2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97340-7_3
32 D. P. HARSANYI
Duke Ferdinand followed the French Revolution closely. He was excep-

tionally well informed thanks to thoughtful and well-written analysis sent
almost daily by the Bailly de Virieu, the envoy to France who had replaced
d’Argental in 1788. Nothing in those events spoke to the duke’s mind or
heart, appalled as he was by the dreadful fate revolutionaries reserved for
Louis XVI and for Marie Antoinette, the sister of his wife, Maria Amalia.
The language of popular sovereignty and militant secularism, so reminis-
cent of the Enlightenment principles Condillac and Kéralio fruitlessly
imparted during his schooling years, horrified him. Regardless, Ferdinand
followed Virieu’s advice, which, throughout his tenure, consisted in two
principles: caution and neutrality. Virieu’s secretary, Joseph (or Giuseppe)
De Lama, took over at the end of 1792 and maintained the exact same
attitude. He urged that Parma recognize the French Republic, even in the
aftermath of the king’s execution. ‘If H.R.H. wishes to shield his states
from certain invasion, he must (by the intermediary of a diplomatic agent
best suited to execute such orders) recognize the French Republic and
reassure its leaders of his good will and friendship’.3 Almost a year later,
the advice did not change: ‘The system of neutrality that our prince has so
wisely observed until now is the only one that a prudent prince can hold
with respect to the French Republic….The power of the Jacobins has
reached the highest point; it is useless to fight against it’.4 Ferdinand lis-
tened to his ambassadors but thought it wise not to share this riveting
news with his subjects. Gazzetta di Parma was instructed to maintain a
3
Letter from De Lama to Count Ventura, 23 December 1792, in Vicomte de Grouchy et
Antoine Guillois, La Révolution Française racontée par un diplomate étranger. Correspondance
du Bailli de Virieu, Ministre plénipotentiaire de Parme (Paris: Flammarion, 1903), 409. All
letters from Virieu and De Lama are addressed to Count Ventura, Parma’s minister of for-
eign affairs. It is not clear why Virieu was abruptly dismissed, not without a rather generous
pension, however. On De Lama’s missives from France see Silvia Molinari, ‘Giuseppe De
Lama, scrupoloso ed erudito cronista della rivoluzione francese’ Aurea Parma, 3 (sett.- dic.
1993): 253–263.
4
Letter of De Lama to Count Ventura, 21 October 1793, in Grouchy and Guillois, La
Révolution Française racontée par un diplomate étranger, 476. Perhaps hoping that the
French armies would falter before reaching his states, Ferdinand entered a formal arrange-
ment with Austria, pledging permission for Austrian commanders to recruit volunteers and
purchase supplies in his lands, with the caveat that all promises were automatically invalidated
should the French ‘irrupt’ in the duchies. Should that happen, the duke would immediately
revert to neutrality. Ferdinand believed the move was both shrewd and prudent. It was nei-
ther: once the French government got wind of the duke’s machinations, it ratcheted up the
price for abstaining from invasion, claiming that the French people were entitled to compen-
sations for damages caused by benevolence towards the Austrian coalition.
3 PARMA AND BONAPARTE 33
total blackout on the revolution unfolding in France; from 1789 on, the
paper never mentioned the name of the country where people were rising
in revolt, going as far as executing a fellow Bourbon king. Even when
events spilled into the duchies, the readership was kept in the dark: there
was no reporting on General Bonaparte’s epic military victories or on the
political revolutions roiling in Northern Italy and no information on
French troops crossing Parma’s borders on 7 May 1796. The first issue
after the invasion, printed on 13 May 1796, cheerily announced the birth
of Ferdinand’s granddaughter and the related visit of a few Spanish roy-
als.5 Soon thereafter the duke decided to suppress the Gazzetta entirely:
the last issue came out on 29 July 1796.
Appointed commander in chief of the Army of Italy on 2 March 1796,
Napoleon Bonaparte left Paris on 11 March with orders to invade
Lombardy and force the Austrians to move troops south of the Rhine
front. Arriving at Nice on 26 March, he immediately advanced towards
Genoa, launching the bewildering campaign of conquests that put
Lombardy and the Piedmont under French control in less than two
months. The key events that transformed the political map were inaugu-
rated by the victory over the Austrian-Piedmont-Sardinian allied troops at
Montenotte on 12 April 1796, a brilliant display of his favourite strategy
of dividing enemy forces by means of deceptive screen-movements.
Subsequent French victories at Millesimo, Dego and Mondovi (14–15
and 21 April) led to the armistice signed at Cherasco on 28 April. The
document included a provision that gave Bonaparte the right to cross the
River Po at Valenza, about 30 miles west of Pavia where Austrian forces
under General Beaulieu retreated after Montenotte. All roads from
Northern Italy to Tuscany and to the Papal States went through
Parma–Piacenza, which facilitated commerce in good times but offered an
ideal corridor for movements of troops and supplies in times of war.6 The
possibility of crossing the River Po at Piacenza, east of Pavia—surprising
General Beaulieu who was expecting an attack at Valenza—was simply too
convenient for Bonaparte to ignore for the sake of diplomatic niceties.7
5
1796. Napoleone a Parma. Ristampa Anastatica dell’annata 1796 della Gazzetta di
Parma, 37–41.
6
Giovanni Tocci noted that geographical location was often the cause of the duchies’ mis-
fortunes. ‘Il Ducato di Parma e Piacenza’, 305.
7
In preparation for the French armies’ arrival, Beaulieu had fortified his side of the river
and burned the boats that the French might have been able to requisition. The Po had very
few bridges; even at Piacenza the armies were able to use only a ferry and several boats. Up
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
When the matters are too pasty to be divided in the mortar they should be divided by means
of a knife or a spatula. They should then be incorporated with a known weight of inert,
pulverulent matter such as fine sand, with which they should be thoroughly mixed and in
subsequent calculations the quantity of sand or other inert matter added must be taken into
consideration. Usually a pasty state of a fertilizer is due to the humidity of the mixture. In this
case a considerable volume of the sample is taken and dried and then reduced to a pulverulent
state. In the subsequent calculations, however, the percentage of moisture lost must be taken
into consideration.
Before drying a sample it is necessary to take into consideration whether or not the product
will be modified by desiccation as would be the case, for instance, with superphosphates. With
these, which are often in a state more or less agglomerated, it is recommended to introduce into
them, in order to divide them, a certain quantity of calcium sulfate in order to obtain them in a
pulverulent state.
In the case of animal débris they should be divided as finely as possible with the aid of
scissors and then passed through a drug mill if dry enough. They are then mixed by hand and
may finally be obtained in a state of considerable homogeneity.
When fertilizers are in a pasty state more or less liquid, they are dried at 100°, first
introducing a little oxalic acid in case they contain any volatile ammoniacal compounds. The
product of desiccation is then passed through a mill. Before treating in this way it is necessary to
be sure that the composition will not be altered by drying. In the case of a mixture containing
superphosphates and nitrate, for instance, drying would eliminate the nitric acid. In such a case
the free phosphoric acid should be neutralized with a base like lime. In the case of fertilizers
containing both nitrates and volatile ammoniacal compounds the addition of oxalic acid might
also set free nitric acid during the desiccation. In such a case it is necessary to dry two samples;
one with the addition of oxalic acid for the purpose of estimating the ammonia, and the other
without the acid for the purpose of estimating the nitrate. A qualitative analysis should precede
all the operations so as to determine the nature of the material to be operated on.
14. German Method.—In the method pursued by the German experiment stations it is
directed:[8]
(1) Dry samples of fertilizers must be passed through a sieve and afterwards well mixed.
(2) With moist fertilizers, which can not be subjected to the above process, the preparation
should consist in a careful and thorough mixing, without sieving.
(3) On the arrival of the samples in the laboratory their weight should be determined. The
half of the sample is prepared for analysis and the other part, to the amount of a kilo, should be
placed in a glass vessel, closed air-tight, and placed in a cool place for at least a quarter of a
year from the time of its reception, in order that it may be subjected to any subsequent
investigations which may be demanded.
(4) In the case of raw phosphates and bone-black the amount of water which they contain
should be determined at from 105° to 110°. Samples which in drying lose ammonia in any way,
should have this ammonia determined.
(5) Samples which are sent to other laboratories for control analyses, should be sent
securely packed in air-tight glass bottles.
(6) The weight of the samples sent should be entered in the certificates of analysis.
(7) Samples which, on pulverizing, change their content of water, must have the water
content estimated in both the coarse and powdered condition and the results of the analysis
must be calculated to the water content of the original coarse substance.
15. Special Cases.—Many cases arise of such a nature as to make it impossible to lay
down any rule which can be followed with success. As in almost every other process in
agricultural chemistry the analyst in such cases must be guided by his judgment and
experience. Keeping in view the main object, viz., to secure in a few grams of material a fair
representation of large masses he will generally be able to reach the required result by following
the broad principles already outlined. In many cases the details of the work and the adaptations
necessary to success must be left to his own determination.
16. Drying Samples of Fertilizers.—The determination of the uncombined moisture in a
sample of fertilizer is not an easy task. In some cases, as in powdered minerals, drying to
constant weight at the temperature of boiling water is sufficient. In organic matters containing
volatile nitrogenous compounds, these must first be fixed by oxalic or sulfuric acid, before the
desiccation begins. If any excess of sulfuric acid be added, however, drying at 100° becomes
almost impossible. Particular precautions must be observed in drying superphosphates. In
drying samples preparatory to grinding for analysis, it is best to stop the process as soon as the
materials can be pulverized. In general, samples should be dried only to determine water, and
the analytical processes should be performed on the undried portions. It is not necessary, as a
rule, to dry samples of fertilizers in an inert atmosphere, such as hydrogen or carbon dioxid.
Drying in vacuo may be practiced when it is desired to secure a speedy desiccation or one at a
low temperature.
17. Official Methods.—The Official Agricultural Chemists direct, in the case of potash salts,
sodium nitrate, and ammonium sulfate, to heat from one to five grams in a flat platinum or
aluminum dish at 130° until the weight is constant.[9] The loss in weight is taken to represent the
water. In all other cases heat two grams, or five grams if the sample be very coarse, for five
hours in a steam-bath.
In the German stations in the case of untreated phosphates and bone-black the moisture is
estimated at from 105° to 110°. Samples which lose ammonia should have the weight of
ammonia given off at that temperature, determined separately.
For purposes of comparison it would be far better to have all contents of moisture
determined at the boiling-point of water. While this varies with the altitude and barometric
pressure yet it is quite certain that the loss on drying to constant weight at all altitudes is
practically the same. Where the atmospheric pressure is diminished for any cause the water
escapes all the more easily. This, practically, is a complete compensation for the diminished
temperature at which water boils.
Where the samples contain no ingredient capable of attacking aluminum, they can be
conveniently dried, in circular dishes of this metal about seven centimeters in diameter and one
centimeter deep, to constant weight, at the temperature of boiling water.
18. Moisture in Monocalcium Phosphates.—In certain fertilizers, especially
superphosphates, containing the monocalcium salt, the estimation of water is a matter of
extreme difficulty on account of the presence of free acids and of progressive changes in the
sample due to different degrees of heat.
Stoklasa has studied these changes and reaches the following results[10]:
A chemically pure monocalcium phosphate of the following composition, viz.,
CaO 22.36 per cent.
P₂O₅ 56.67 “ “
H₂O 21.53 “ “
was subjected to progressive dryings. The loss of water after ten hours was 1.83 per cent; after
twenty hours, 2.46 per cent; after thirty hours, 5.21 per cent; after forty hours, 6.32 per cent;
after fifty hours, 6.43 per cent. This loss of water remained constant at 6.43 per cent. This loss
represents one molecule of water as compared with the total molecular magnitude of the mass
treated. A calcium phosphate, therefore, of the following composition, CaH₄(PO₄)₂·H₂O loses,
after forty hours, drying at 100°, its water of crystallization. The calcium phosphate produced by
this method forms opaque crystals which are not hygroscopic and which give, on analysis, the
following numbers:
CaO 24.02 per cent.
P₂O₅ 16.74 “ “
H₂O 15.09 “ “
The temperature can be raised to 105° without marked change. If the temperature be raised
to 200° the decomposition of the molecule is hastened according to the following formula:
4 CaH₄(PO₄)₂ = Ca₂P₂O₇ + Ca(PO₃)₂ + CaH₂P₂O₇ + 2 H₃PO₄ + 4 H₂O.

The chemical changes during the drying of monocalcium phosphates can be represented as
follows, temperature 200° for one hour:
8[CaH₄(PO₄)₂·H₂O] = 4CaH₄(PO₄)₂ + Ca(PO₃)₂ + Ca₂P₂O₇

+ CaH₂P₂O₇ + 2H₃PO₄ + 12H₂O.
The further drying at 200° produces the following decomposition:
4CaH₄(PO₄)₂ + Ca(PO₃)₂ + Ca₂P₂O₇ + CaH₂P₂O₇ + 2H₃PO₄

= 2Ca(PO₃)₂ + 4CaH₂P₂O₇ + Ca₂P₂O₇ + 2H₃PO₄ + 5H₂O.
2Ca(PO₃)₂ + 4CaH₂P₂O₇ + Ca₂PO₇ + 2H₃PO₄
= 6Ca(PO₃)₂ + 2CaH₂P₂O₇ + 5H₂O.
Finally, pyrophosphate at 210° is completely decomposed into metaphosphate and water
according to the following formula:
6Ca(PO₃)₂ + 2CaH₂P₂O₇ = 8Ca(PO₃)₂ + 2H₂O.

Provided the drying is made at once at 210° the sum of the changes produced as indicated
above, can be represented by the following formula:
8[CaH₄(PO₄)₂·H₂O] = 8Ca(PO₃)₂ + 24H₂O.
COMPLETE ANALYSIS OF
MINERAL PHOSPHATES.
19. Constituents to be Determined.—The most important point in the analysis of mineral
phosphates is to determine their content of phosphoric acid. Of equal scientific interest,
however, and often of great commercial importance is the determination of the percentage of
other acids and bases present. The analyst is often called on, in the examination of these
bodies, to make known the content of water both free and combined, of organic and volatile
matter, of carbon dioxid, sulfur, chlorin, fluorin, silica, iron, alumina, calcium, manganese,
magnesia, and the alkalies. The estimation of some of these bodies presents problems of
considerable difficulty, and it would be vain to suppose that the best possible methods are now
known. Especially is this the case with the processes which relate to the estimation of the
fluorin, silica, iron, alumina, and lime. The phosphoric acid, however, which is the chief
constituent from a commercial point of view, it is believed, can now be determined with a high
degree of precision. Often the estimation of some of the less important constituents is of great
interest in determining the origin of the deposits, especially in the case of fluorin. While the
merchant is content with knowing the percentage of phosphoric acid and the manufacturer asks
in addition only some knowledge of the quantity of iron, alumina, and lime the analyst in most
cases is only content with a complete knowledge of the constitution of the sample at his
disposal.
20. Direct Estimation of the Phosphoric Acid.—It often happens, in the case of a mineral
phosphate, that the only determination desired is of the phosphoric acid. In this instance the
analyst may proceed as follows: If the qualitative test shows the usual amount of phosphoric
acid, two grams of the sample passed through a sieve, with a millimeter mesh, are placed in a
beaker and thoroughly moistened with water. The addition of water is to secure an even action
of the hydrochloric acid on the carbonates present. The beaker is covered with a watch-glass
and a little hydrochloric acid is added from time to time until all effervescence has ceased. There
are then added about thirty cubic centimeters of aqua regia and the mixture raised to the boiling-
point on a sand-bath or over a lamp. The heating is continued until chlorin is no longer given off
and solution is complete. The volume of the solution is then made up to 200 cubic centimeters
without filtering, filtered, and an aliquot part of the filtrate, usually fifty cubic centimeters,
representing half a gram of the original sample, taken for the determination of the phosphoric
acid according to the method of the Official Agricultural Chemists. The small quantity of
insoluble material does not introduce any appreciable error into the process when the volume is
made up to 200 or 250 cubic centimeters.
21. Method of the Official Agricultural Chemists for Total Phosphoric Acid.—To the hot
solution, for every decigram of phosphorus pentoxid which may be present, add fifty cubic
centimeters of the molybdic solution. Digest at 65° for an hour, filter, and wash with water or
ammonium nitrate solution[11]. Test the filtrate by renewed digestion with additional molybdate
reagent. Dissolve the precipitate on the filter with ammonia in hot water and wash into a beaker,
making the volume of filtrate and washings not more than 100 cubic centimeters. Nearly
neutralize with hydrochloric acid, cool, and add magnesia mixture from a burette at the rate of
about one drop a second, stirring vigorously, meanwhile. The quantity of magnesia mixture to be
added is not prescribed in the official method but it should always be in excess of the amount
necessary for complete precipitation. For each decigram of phosphorus pentoxid, from eight to
ten cubic centimeters should be used. Fifteen minutes after the last of the magnesia mixture has
been stirred in, thirty cubic centimeters of ammonia of 0.95 specific gravity are added and the
beaker set aside for two hours or longer. The ammonium magnesium phosphate is separated by
filtration, dried, ignited gently at first, and finally over a blast-lamp and weighed as magnesium
pyrophosphate. The factors for calculating the phosphorus pentoxid and tricalcium phosphate
from the weight of pyrophosphate are given below on the two bases; viz., hydrogen equals 1,
and oxygen equals 16.
H = 1.
Mg₂P₂O₇ × 0.63976 = P₂O₅
Mg₂P₂O₇ × 1.3964 = Ca₃(PO₄)₂
P₂O₅ × 2.1827 = Ca₃(PO₄)₂
O = 16.
Mg₂P₂O₇ × 0.63792 = P₂O₅
Mg₂P₂O₇ × 1.3926 = Ca₃(PO₄)₂
P₂O₅ × 2.1831 = Ca₃(PO₄)₂
22. Preparation of Solutions.—Molybdic Solution.—Dissolve 100 grams of molybdic acid in
400 grams or 417 cubic centimeters of ammonia, of 0.96 specific gravity, and pour the solution
thus obtained into 1,500 grams or 1,250 cubic centimeters of nitric acid, of 1.20 specific gravity.
Keep the mixture in a warm place for several days, or until a portion heated to 40° deposits no
yellow precipitate of ammonium phosphomolybdate. Decant the solution from any sediment and
preserve in glass-stoppered vessels.
Magnesia Mixture.—Dissolve twenty-two grams of recently ignited calcined magnesia in
dilute hydrochloric acid, avoiding an excess of the latter. Add a little calcined magnesia in
excess, and boil a few minutes to precipitate iron, alumina, and phosphoric acid; filter, add 280
grams of ammonium chlorid, 700 cubic centimeters of ammonia of specific gravity 0.96, and
water enough to make a volume of two liters. Instead of the solution of twenty-two grams of
calcined magnesia, 110 grams of crystallized magnesium chlorid may be used.
Dilute Ammonia for Washing.—One volume of ammonia, of 0.96 specific gravity, mixed with
three volumes of water, or usually one volume of concentrated ammonia with six volumes of
water.
23. Use of Tartaric Acid in Phosphoric Acid Estimation.—In the presence of iron the
molybdate mixture is likely to carry down some ferric oxid with the yellow precipitate. To prevent
this, and also hinder the separation of molybdic acid in the solution on long standing, tartaric
acid has been recommended.
Jüptner has found that the presence of tartaric acid does not interfere with the separation of
the yellow precipitate, as some authorities assert.[12] Even 100 grams of the acid in one liter of
molybdate solution produce no disturbing effect. Molybdate solution treated with tartaric acid did
not show any separation of molybdic acid when kept for a year at room temperatures. The
presence of tartaric acid, therefore, is highly recommended by him to prevent the danger of
obtaining both ferric oxid and molybdic acid with the yellow precipitate.
24. Water and Organic Matters.—The sample, according to the practice of Chatard, should
be ground fine enough to leave no residue on an eighty mesh sieve, and should be thoroughly
mixed by passing it three times through a forty mesh sieve[13].
Two grams are weighed into a tared platinum crucible. This, with its lid, is placed in an air-
bath at 105°, and heated for at least three hours. The lid is then put on, and the crucible is
placed in a desiccator and weighed as soon as cold. The loss in weight is the moisture.
Wyatt recommends that two grams of the fine material be heated in ground watch-glasses,
the edges of which are separated so as to allow the escape of the moisture.[14] The heating is
continued for three hours at 110°, the watch-glasses then closed and held by the clip, cooled in
a desiccator, and weighed. This method is excellent for very hygroscopic bodies, but where
quick-acting balances are used, scarcely necessary for a powdered mineral.
The residue from the moisture determination is gradually heated to full redness over a
bunsen, and then ignited over the blast-lamp. This operation is repeated after weighing until a
constant weight is obtained. The loss (after deducting the percentage of carbon dioxid as found
in another portion) may be taken as water and organic matter. This method is sufficient for all
practical purposes; but when minerals containing fluorin are strongly ignited, a part of the fluorin
is expelled; hence, if more accurate determinations are required, the loss of fluorin must be
taken into account. In this laboratory it has been proved that a pure calcium fluorid undergoes
progressive decomposition at a bright red heat with formation of lime.
Wyatt directs that the combined water and organic matters be determined in the residue from
the moisture estimation as follows: The residue is brushed into a weighed platinum crucible,
which is heated over a small bunsen for ten minutes and then brought to full heat of a blast-lamp
for five minutes. After cooling, the total loss is determined by weighing. After deducting the
carbon dioxid determined in a separate portion, the residual loss is regarded as due to
combined moisture and organic matter.
25. Carbon Dioxid.—Many forms of compact apparatus have been devised for this
estimation, but none of them is satisfactory if accurate results are desired.[15] Not to mention
other objections, many phosphates must be heated nearly to the boiling-point with dilute acid to
effect complete decomposition of the carbonates. The distillation method described by
Gooch[16] is excellent, and when once the apparatus is set up, its work will be found to be rapid
and satisfactory.
Wyatt regards the estimation of carbon dioxid as one of the most important for factory use.
The carbonates present in a sample indicate the loss of an equivalent amount of acid in the
process of conversion into superphosphate.[17]
The apparatus employed for estimating carbon dioxid may be any one of those in ordinary
use for this purpose. The principle of the process depends on the liberation of the gas with a
mineral acid, its proper desiccation, and subsequent absorption by a caustic alkali, best in
solution.
The apparatus of Knorr, described in volume first, page 338, may be conveniently used. The
weight of the sample to be used should be regulated by the content of carbonate. When this is
very high, from one to two grams will be found sufficient; when low, a larger quantity must be
used. Hydrochloric is preferred as the solvent acid. Those forms of apparatus which are
weighed as a whole and the carbon dioxid determined by reweighing after its expulsion, are not
as reliable as the absorption apparatus mentioned.
26. Soluble and Insoluble Matter.—Five grams of the fine phosphate are put into a beaker,
twenty-five cubic centimeters of nitric acid, (specific gravity 1.20) and 12.5 cubic centimeters of
hydrochloric acid (specific gravity 1.12) are added. The beaker, covered with a watch-glass, is
placed upon the water-bath for thirty minutes[18]. The contents of the beaker are well stirred
from time to time, and at the end of the period the beaker is removed from the bath, filled with
cold water, well stirred, and allowed to settle. The solution is next filtered into a half liter flask,
and the residue is thoroughly washed with cold water, partially dried, and then ignited, (finishing
with the blast-lamp) and brought to constant weight. The figures thus obtained will, however, be
incorrect, because the fluorin liberated during the solution of the phosphates dissolves a portion
of the silica. Hence, the results are too low. Nevertheless, as the same action would occur in the
manufacture of a superphosphate from the material, the determination may be considered, as a
fair approximation to commercial practice. The ignited residue must be tested for phosphorus
pentoxid.
27. Preparation of the Solution.—The flask containing the filtrate is filled to the mark with
cold water, and the solution is thoroughly mixed by twice pouring into a dry beaker and returning
it to the flask. Cold water is used for washing the residue, since if hot water be used, the
sesquichlorids are apt to become basic and insoluble, and hence to remain in the residue and
on the filter paper. Besides, as the flask is to be filled to the mark, the contents must be cold
before any volumetric measurements can be made.
28. Silica and Insoluble Bodies.—Wyatt describes the following method for determining the
total insoluble or siliceous matters in a mineral phosphate[19]. Five grams of the fine sample are
placed in a porcelain dish with about thirty cubic centimeters of aqua regia. The dish is covered
with a funnel, placed on a sand-bath and, after solution is complete, evaporated to dryness with
care to prevent sputtering. When dry the residue is moistened with hydrochloric acid and again
dried, rubbing meanwhile to a fine powder. The heat of the bath is then increased to 125° and
maintained at this temperature for about ten minutes. When cool, the residue is treated with fifty
cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid for fifteen minutes. The acid is then diluted and filtered on
a gooch, which is washed with hot water until the filtrate amounts to a quarter of a liter. The
residue in the crucible is dried, ignited, and weighed. This method, unless the solution be
subsequently boiled with nitric acid, may not retain all the phosphoric acid in the ortho form.
It is difficult to estimate the total silica by the ordinary methods of mineral analysis. This is
due to the fact that in an acid solution of a substance containing silicates and fluorids the whole
of the silica or the fluorin, as the case may be may escape as silicofluorid on evaporation. Again,
it is not easy to decompose calcium phosphate by fusing with sodium carbonate. If an attempt
be made to do this, however, the process should be conducted as follows: A portion of the
sample is ground to an impalpable powder in an agate mortar. From one to two grams of the
substance are mixed with five times its weight of sodium carbonate and fused with the
precautions given in standard works on quantitative analysis. The fused mass is digested in
water, boiled, and filtered, and the residue washed first with boiling water and afterwards with
ammonium carbonate. The filtrate contains all the fluorin as sodium fluorid and, in addition to
this, sodium carbonate, silicate, and aluminate. Mix the filtrate with ammonium carbonate and
heat for some time, replacing the ammonium carbonate which evaporates. Separate by filtration
the silicic acid hydrate and aluminum hydroxid which are formed and wash them with
ammonium carbonate. To separate the last portions of silica from the filtrate, add a solution of
zinc oxid in ammonia. Evaporate until no more ammonia escapes and separate, by filtration, the
zinc silicate and oxid. Determine the silica in this precipitate by dissolving in nitric acid,
evaporating to dryness, taking up with nitric acid and separating the undissolved silica by
filtration. In the alkaline filtrate the fluorin may be estimated by the usual method as calcium salt.
29. Estimation of Lime.—One hundred cubic centimeters of the solution (containing one
gram of the original substance) are evaporated in a beaker to about fifty cubic centimeters; ten
cubic centimeters of dilute sulfuric acid (one to five) are added; and the evaporation is continued
on the water-bath until a considerable crop of crystals of gypsum has formed[20]. The solution is
then allowed to cool, when it generally becomes pasty, owing to the separation of additional
gypsum. When it is cold, 150 cubic centimeters of ninety-five per cent alcohol are slowly added,
with continual stirring, and the whole is allowed to stand for three hours, being stirred from time
to time. After three hours, it is filtered, with the aid of a filter-pump, into a distillation flask, and
the beautifully crystalline precipitate, which does not adhere to the beaker, is washed with
ninety-five per cent alcohol. The filter, with the precipitate, is gently removed from the funnel and
inverted into a platinum crucible, so that, by squeezing the point of the filter, the precipitate is
made to fall into the crucible, and the paper can be pressed down smoothly upon it. On gentle
heating of the crucible, the remaining alcohol burns off, and when the paper has been
completely destroyed, the heat is raised to the full power of a bunsen for about five minutes.
After cooling in a desiccator the crucible containing the calcium sulfate, is weighed. The filtration
may also be accomplished on asbestos felt.
30. The Ammonium Oxalate Method.—This method has been extensively used in this
country in commercial work, and is best carried out as described by Wyatt.[21] The total filtrates
from the iron and alumina precipitates, secured as described in paragraph 33, are well mixed
and concentrated to a volume of about 100 cubic centimeters. There are added about twenty
cubic centimeters of a saturated solution of ammonium oxalate, and after stirring, the mixture is
allowed to cool and remain at rest for six hours. The supernatant liquid is poured through a filter,
the residue washed three times by decantation with hot water and brought upon the filter. The
beaker and precipitate are washed at least three times. The precipitate is dried and ignited at
low redness for ten minutes. The temperature is then raised by a blast and the ignition
continued for five minutes longer, or until the lime is obtained as oxid. The precipitate is likely to
contain magnesia. The magnesia is estimated in the filtrates from the lime determination by first
mixing them and concentrating to 100 cubic centimeters, which, after cooling, are made strongly
alkaline with ammonia. After allowing to stand for twelve hours the ammonium magnesium
phosphate is collected and reduced to magnesium pyrophosphate by the usual processes. If
one gram of the original material has been used the pyrophosphate obtained, multiplied by 0.36,
will give the weight of magnesia contained therein.
31. Lime Method of Immendorff.—The tedious processes required to determine the lime in
the presence of iron, alumina, and large quantities of phosphoric acid are well known to
analysts. Immendorff has published a method, accompanied by the necessary experimental
data, based on the comparative insolubility of calcium oxalate in very dilute solution of
hydrochloric acid. He has shown in the data given that the lime is all precipitated in the
conditions named and that the precipitate, when properly prepared, is not contaminated with
weighable amounts of the other substances found in the original solution[22]. The ease with
which oxalic acid can be determined volumetrically with potassium permanganate solution aids
greatly in the time-saving advantages of the process.
In a hydrochloric acid solution of a mineral phosphate an aliquot part of the filtrate
representing about 250 milligrams of calcium oxid, usually about twenty-five cubic centimeters,
should be taken for the analysis. Ammonia is added in slight excess and then the acid reaction
restored with hydrochloric until shown plainly by litmus. The solution is then heated and the lime
thrown down by adding a solution of ammonium oxalate in excess. In order to secure a greater
dilution of the hydrochloric acid after the precipitation has been made, water should be added
until the volume is half a liter. Before filtering, the whole should be cooled to room temperature.
The precipitate should be washed first with cold and afterwards with warm water. The well-
washed precipitate is dissolved in hot dilute sulfuric acid and the solution, while hot, titrated with
a standard solution of potassium permanganate set by a solution of ammonio-ferrous sulfate.
If one cubic centimeter of the permanganate represent 0.005 gram of iron it will correspond
almost exactly to 0.0035 gram of calcium oxid.
Example.—Sample of rather poor mineral phosphate, five grams in
half a liter. Strength of potassium permanganate, one cubic centimeter
equivalent to 0.00697 gram of iron and to 0.003484 gram of calcium
oxid.
Twenty-five cubic centimeters of the solution, representing one
quarter of a gram, in which the lime was precipitated as above described,
required 9.6 cubic centimeters of the potassium permanganate to
saturate the oxalic acid. Then
9.6 × 0.003484 = 0.0334464 gram,

or 13.38 per cent of calcium oxid. The method is also applicable to basic
slags.
32. Estimation of Iron and Alumina in Mineral Phosphates.—When mineral phosphates
are to be used for the manufacture of superphosphates by treatment with sulfuric acid their
content of iron and alumina becomes a matter of importance. By reason of the poor drying
qualities of the sulfates of these bases their presence in any considerable excess of a few per
cent becomes exceedingly objectionable. The accurate estimation of these ingredients is not
only then a matter of scientific interest but one of great commercial significance to the
manufacturer.
The conventional methods so long in use depending on the precipitation of the iron and
alumina as phosphates in the presence of acetic acid have been proved to be somewhat
unreliable. Not only does the acetic acid fail to prevent the precipitation of some of the lime, but
it also dissolves more or less of the iron and aluminum phosphates. The solution of the
precipitate and its reprecipitation by the addition of ammonia, may free the second precipitate
from lime, but it increases the error due to the solubility of the aluminum salt. The methods
recently introduced for the estimation of iron and alumina in presence of excess of lime and
phosphoric acid are not entirely satisfactory, but are the best which can now be offered.
33. The Acetate Method.—The principle of this process is based on the fact that in a
solution containing iron, alumina, lime, and phosphoric acid the iron and aluminum phosphates
can be thrown down in a slightly acid solution by ammonium acetate while the calcium
phosphate remains in solution. The acidity in the older methods is due to acetic and can be
secured by making the solution slightly alkaline with ammonia and adding acetic to slight acidity.
One of the best methods of conducting the operation is that of C. Glaser[23]. Glaser’s
modification of the older processes is based on the assumption that at 70° the aluminum
phosphate is quantitatively precipitated by ammonium acetate in a dilute hydrochloric acid
solution and that the mixed precipitates of iron and aluminum phosphates obtained at this
temperature are free of lime. The operation is conducted in the following manner:
The hydrochloric acid solution of the phosphate must contain no free chlorin and is treated
with a few drops of a methyl orange solution. Ammonia is added until nearly neutral, but the acid
reaction is retained as shown by the indicator. A few cubic centimeters of ammonium acetate
are added, which produce a yellow coloration of the liquid and also a complete precipitation of
the iron and aluminum phosphates when warmed to 70°. At this temperature the precipitation of
any calcium phosphate is avoided. A small quantity of the lime may be carried down
mechanically and therefore the precipitate should be dissolved in hydrochloric acid and the
precipitation again made as above after the addition of some sodium phosphate. If the original
solution contain any free chlorin, as may be the case when aqua regia is employed as solvent,
before beginning the separation, ammonia should be added in slight excess and the acidity
restored by hydrochloric after adding the indicator. In washing the precipitates, water of not over
70° must be used. As has been shown by Hess in the work cited in the next paragraph, the
statement of C. Glaser to the effect that the precipitates obtained as above are free of lime has
not been proved to be strictly correct. The process, however, is a distinct improvement over the
older methods and forms the basis of the amended process given below, which appears to be
sufficiently accurate to entitle the acetate method to favorable consideration.
34. Method of Hess.—Hess has lately made a thorough investigation of the standard
methods of determining the iron and aluminum oxids in the presence of phosphoric acid and has
shown that the assumption that the composition of the precipitate is represented by the formula
Al₂(PO₄)₂ + Fe₂(PO₄)₂ is erroneous[24].
In the washing of the precipitated iron and aluminum phosphates there is a progressive
decomposition of the compound with the production of a basic salt. The composition of the
precipitate at the end is dependent chiefly upon the way in which the washing takes place. It is
quite difficult to always secure a washing in exactly the same way and the final composition of
the precipitate varies with almost every determination. It is not, therefore, an accurate
proceeding to take half the weight of the precipitate as phosphoric acid or as iron oxid and
alumina. In every case it is necessary to dissolve the precipitate and determine the phosphoric
acid in the regular way. Hess proposes the following method for carrying out the acetate process
of separation:
The mineral phosphate should be dissolved in hydrochloric acid and the solution made up to
such a volume as shall contain in each fifty cubic centimeters, one gram of the original
substance. This quantity of the solution is diluted with two or three times its volume of water to
which a drop of methyl orange solution (1-100) is added, and ammonia added with constant
stirring until the solution is just colored and still reacts slightly acid. Without taking any account
of the precipitate which is produced by this approximate neutralization of the solution, there are
added fifty cubic centimeters of acid ammonium acetate which in one liter contains 250 grams of
commercial ammonium acetate. The acidity of the solution is due to an excess of acetic in the
commercial salt. The temperature is then carried to 70° and the precipitate produced
immediately separated by filtration, washed four times with water below 70°, and again
dissolved in dilute hydrochloric acid. The dissolved precipitate is treated with ten cubic
centimeters of a ten per cent ammonium phosphate solution and again almost neutralized as
described above, twenty-five cubic centimeters of the ammonium acetate solution added and
warmed to 70°.
The precipitate obtained is once more dissolved and precipitated as above described, and is
then collected upon a filter, washed, ignited, and weighed. The residue after ignition is dissolved
in the crucible by heating with a little concentrated hydrochloric acid, and washed into a beaker.
Any silicic acid present is separated by filtration, ignited, and weighed, and subtracted from the
total weight of the precipitate. To the filtrate is added ammonia to diminish the acidity, but not
sufficient to produce a precipitate and the clear solution is treated with thirty cubic centimeters of
the ordinary ammoniacal citrate solution and fifteen cubic centimeters of magnesium mixture,
and the precipitation of the ammonium magnesium phosphate hastened by stirring with a glass
rod.
It is advisable to always make the filtrate from the third precipitation slightly ammoniacal and
to boil it for a long time. If the operation have been carried on correctly, there occurs only a slight
precipitate of Ca₃P₂O₈ amounting only to a few milligrams. In some cases it may be necessary
to dissolve the precipitate and reprecipitate the iron and aluminum phosphates a fourth time.
The whole time required for the triple precipitation, according to Hess, if all the operations be
properly conducted, is from three to four hours. It is therefore possible by this variation of the
acetate method to secure a determination of the iron and alumina as phosphates in the same
time which is occupied by the Glaser-Jones method when the separation of lime is taken into
account.
If the solution of the mineral phosphate employed contain any notable quantity of organic
material, it must be destroyed by boiling with bromin or some other oxidation agent, before the
precipitation by the acetate method is commenced.
The presence of silicic acid need not be taken into special consideration since this can be
detected and determined in the phosphate precipitates after they have been ignited and
weighed. While the determinations of the phosphoric acid in Hess’ method were made by
precipitation in the presence of citrate, he found that they agree perfectly with the previous
precipitations with molybdic solution.
35. Method of Glaser.—The principle on which this method rests depends on the
preliminary removal of the lime by conversion into calcium sulfate and its precipitation in the
presence of strong alcohol.[25] It is conducted as follows:
Five grams of the phosphate are dissolved in a mixture of twenty-five cubic centimeters of
nitric acid of 1.2 specific gravity and about 12.5 cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid of 1.12
specific gravity, and made up to a volume of half a liter, and filtered. One hundred cubic
centimeters of the filtrate, equivalent to one gram of the substance, are placed in a quarter liter
flask and twenty-five cubic centimeters of sulfuric acid of 1.84 specific gravity added. The flask
is allowed to stand for about five minutes and meanwhile shaken a few times. About 100 cubic
centimeters of alcohol of ninety-five per cent are then added and the flask filled with alcohol to
the mark and well shaken. A certain degree of concentration takes place and this is
compensated for by lifting the stopper and filling again with alcohol to the mark and shaking a
second time. After allowing to stand for half an hour the contents of the flask are filtered, 100
cubic centimeters of the filtrate being equal to four-tenths gram of the substance. This volume,
filtered, is evaporated in a platinum dish until the alcohol is driven off. The alcohol-free residue is
heated to boiling in a beaker with about fifty cubic centimeters of water. Ammonia is added to
alkaline reaction, but in order to avoid strong effervescence it is not added during the boiling.
The excess of ammonia is evaporated, the flask allowed to cool, the contents filtered, precipitate
and filter washed with warm water, ignited, and the phosphates of iron and alumina weighed.
Half of the weight of the precipitate represents the weight of Fe₂O₃ + Al₂O₃. The estimation, as
before indicated, should be carried on without delay, the whole time required not exceeding from
one and a half to two hours.
36. Jones’ Variation.—The method of Glaser described above, as practiced by the German
chemists, has been found by Jones to be inaccurate on account of the alcohol not being added
in sufficient quantity in the precipitation of calcium sulfate and for the additional reason that the
amount of sulfuric acid added is more than is actually necessary[26]. Jones modifies the method
as follows: Ten grams of the material are dissolved in nitro-hydrochloric acid and the solution
made up to 500 cubic centimeters and filtered. Fifty cubic centimeters of this solution,
representing one gram, are evaporated to twenty-five cubic centimeters and, while still hot, ten
cubic centimeters of dilute sulfuric acid (one to five) added. The mixture is then well stirred and
cooled. One hundred and fifty cubic centimeters of ninety-five per cent alcohol are next added
and after stirring, the solution is allowed to stand three hours. The calcium sulfate is collected on
a filter, washed with alcohol, and the filtrate and washings collected in an erlenmeyer. The
washing is completed when the last ten drops, after dilution with an equal volume of water, are
not colored with a drop of methyl orange.
The moist calcium sulfate is transferred to a platinum crucible, the filter placed on it, the
alcohol burned off, the filter incinerated, and the calcium sulfate ignited and weighed. The
contents of the flask are heated to expel the alcohol, the residue washed into a beaker, made
slightly alkaline with ammonia, and again heated till all the ammonia is driven off. This treatment
is necessary to prevent the precipitate from being contaminated with magnesia. The precipitate
is collected on a filter, washed four times with hot water, or water containing ammonium nitrate,
dried, ignited, and weighed. One-half of the weight of the precipitate represents the weight of the
ferric and aluminic oxids.
37. Estimation of Iron and Alumina in Phosphates by Crispo’s Method.—The phosphate
of ferric iron is subject to a slight decomposition in presence of both hot and cold water with a
tendency to the production of basic compounds. It is soluble to a slight extent in hot and cold
acetic acid, almost insoluble in ammonium acetate, and quite insoluble in ammonium chlorid
and nitrate. Aluminum phosphate is likewise soluble, to a slight degree, in acetic acid and
ammonium acetate, and insoluble in ammonium chlorid and nitrate. The method of Crispo for
the separation of iron and alumina in phosphates is based on the above properties.[27] Five
grams of the mineral phosphate are dissolved in fifty cubic centimeters of aqua regia, composed
of forty cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid of 1.10, and ten of nitric acid of 1.20 specific
gravity, and this solution is diluted to half a liter. To fifty cubic centimeters of the filtered solution
are added two of ammonia (0.96) and fifty of a half saturated solution of ammonium chlorid, and
the whole boiled. The liquid should remain clear, but if it become cloudy add a little dilute nitric
acid, drop by drop, until the turbidity is removed, and then ten cubic centimeters of a saturated
solution of ammonium acetate, and boil for three minutes, cool, and filter. The precipitate is
washed twice with a ten per cent solution of ammonium chlorid and redissolved with two cubic
centimeters of nitric acid, and the filter washed with hot water. The phosphoric acid is separated
by forty cubic centimeters of molybdate solution, and the precipitate washed three or four times
with a one per cent nitric acid solution.
To the filtrate are added fifty cubic centimeters of a one-half saturated ammonium chlorid
solution, ammonia is added in slight excess to produce precipitation and the mixture boiled for a
few minutes. After filtering, the precipitate is washed with hot water three or four times, dissolved
in two cubic centimeters of nitric acid, and the filter washed with hot water. Again, fifty cubic
centimeters of half saturated ammonium chlorid are added and the precipitate thrown down
once more by ammonia in slight excess. The precipitate is washed with hot water and finally
ignited and weighed as iron and aluminum oxids.
According to Crispo, the original Glaser method, with its various modifications, is not to be
considered reliable, and the choice lies between the molybdic method as usually practiced, and
his own for the accurate estimation of iron and alumina. Manganese disturbs the accuracy of the
results unless the directions given are carefully followed. Manganese phosphate is soluble at all
temperatures below fifty. If then the mixture of the phosphates be allowed to cool before filtering,
the iron and aluminum salts are not contaminated with manganese. This method of Crispo is
somewhat tedious, but it is claimed that these variations of the molybdic method render it exact
in respect of the determination of iron and alumina.
38. Method Employed in Geological Survey.—Chatard gives the following directions for
conducting the Glaser-Jones process[28]: The distillation flask containing the alcoholic filtrate is
connected with its condenser and heated on a water-bath until no more alcohol comes over.
This distillate, if mixed with a little sodium carbonate and redistilled over quicklime, can be used
over and over again, so that the expense for alcohol is really very slight, while in the use of the
Glaser method, with its large amount of sulfuric acid, all the alcohol is lost.
When the distillation is ended the residue in the flask is washed into a platinum dish and
evaporated to a small bulk on the water-bath. The dark brown color produced is due to the
presence of organic matter and this must be destroyed, as it prevents the complete precipitation
of the phosphate in the subsequent operation.
The organic matter is best destroyed by removing the dish from the bath, adding a small
quantity of pure sodium nitrate, and heating very carefully over the naked flame, keeping the
dish well covered with a watch-glass to avoid spattering. The mass fuses to a colorless, viscous
liquid, becoming glassy when cooled and is readily soluble in a hot very dilute solution of nitric
acid. The solution transferred to a beaker is made distinctly alkaline with ammonia and carefully
neutralized with acetic acid, diluted with hot water, boiled, and the precipitate allowed to settle,
after which it is separated by filtration.
After the precipitate has been completely transferred to the filter, the washing is completed
with a dilute solution of ammonium nitrate. The precipitate is dried, ignited, cooled, and weighed.
The determinations should be made in pairs, one portion being used for the estimation of the
phosphoric acid by fusing with a little sodium carbonate, and the other, after fusion with sodium
carbonate, is dissolved with sulfuric acid and the iron reduced and titrated with potassium
permanganate solution. The filtrate from the iron and alumina determination is evaporated to a
small bulk, made strongly ammoniacal and allowed to stand for some time when the magnesia
present separates as ammonium magnesium phosphate which is determined in the usual way.
If, during the evaporation of the filtrate, any flocculent matter separate, it should be removed
by filtration and examined before precipitating the magnesia.
39. Variation of Marioni and Fasselli.—Glaser’s method has been shown to be subject to
errors by Marioni and Fasselli[29] in the following respects:
1. The precipitation of a small quantity of calcium phosphate with the ferric and aluminum
phosphates.
2. The possible precipitation of basic phosphates if all the iron and alumina are not combined
with phosphoric acid in the mineral.
3. The partial solubility of ferric and aluminum phosphates in dilute acetic acid.
4. The decomposition of ferric orthophosphate into soluble acid phosphate and insoluble
basic salt by boiling.
To avoid these errors the following procedure is proposed: From one to five grams of the
phosphate are boiled in a flask for ten minutes with fifteen cubic centimeters of strong
hydrochloric acid, and afterwards diluted with a double volume of water. A few crystals of
potassium chlorate are added, and several drops of nitric acid, and the liquid boiled to expel
chlorin. It is then filtered and washed until the volume of the filtered liquid amounts to 150 cubic
centimeters. After cooling, a half gram of ammonium phosphate in solution is added, and two
cubic centimeters of glacial acetic acid, followed by dilute ammonia, drop by drop, until a slight
precipitate persists on stirring. Again the same quantity of acetic acid is added as above, well
shaken, and left for two hours. The precipitate is collected on a filter and washed with a one per
cent ammonium phosphate solution. The precipitate is dissolved by a minimum quantity of
hydrochloric acid and the solution collected in the same vessel in which the precipitation took
place. A second precipitation is conducted just as described above. The precipitate is washed
as above described and ignited at a dull red heat. Half the weight obtained represents the ferric
oxid and alumina.
40. Method of Ogilvie.—For the separation of alumina from phosphoric acid Ogilvie
recommends that the filtrate from the phosphomolybdate precipitate be neutralized with
ammonia, the precipitate thus formed redissolved in nitric acid, again precipitated with ammonia,
filtered, ignited, and weighed as aluminum oxid.[30] If iron be present it will, of course, appear in
the product. For use in the examination of mineral phosphates the method can not have a wide
application without amendment.
41. Method of Krug and McElroy.—Krug and McElroy show that when sufficient alcohol is
added to precipitate all of the calcium sulfate in the Glaser method, it will also cause a
precipitation of a considerable quantity of iron, by means of which the calcium sulfate will be
colored.[31] The presence of potassium and ammonium salts also affects very notably the
precipitation of calcium. The method employed by them, in order to avoid these sources of error,
is as follows:
One hundred cubic centimeters, equivalent to one gram of the substance, in a nitric acid
solution, are placed in a half liter flask and a solution of ammonium molybdate added until all the
phosphoric acid has been precipitated. The addition of ammonium nitrate will hasten the
separation of the ammonium phosphomolybdate. The liquid should be allowed to stand for
twelve hours. The flask is then filled to the mark, the contents well shaken, filtered through a dry
filter, and duplicate samples of 200 cubic centimeters each of the filtrate taken for analysis.
A small quantity of ammonium nitrate is dissolved in the liquid, and ammonia cautiously
added, keeping the solution as cool as possible. The iron and alumina are precipitated as
hydroxids. The mixed hydroxids are collected on a filter, washed with water, the filtrate and
washings being collected in a beaker. The precipitate should be dissolved with a small quantity
of a solution of ammonium nitrate and nitric acid, again precipitated with ammonia, filtered,
washed, ignited, and weighed. This treatment is for the purpose of excluding all possibility of
error from the presence of molybdic anhydrid. After weighing, the mixed oxids should be fused
with sodium bisulfate, the magma dissolved in water, and the iron determined volumetrically with
potassium permanganate after reduction to the ferrous state.
McElroy has further shown by experiments in this laboratory that even the molybdate method
of separating the iron and alumina from phosphoric acid with the improvements as first
suggested by Krug and himself, may not always give reliable results.[32] In a solution containing
ferrous iron equivalent to 56.4 milligrams of ferric oxid, were placed enough of a solution of
sodium phosphate to correspond to 100 milligrams of phosphorus pentoxid. The precipitate was
dissolved by adding nitric acid, oxidized with bromin water, and the phosphoric acid thrown out
with ammonium molybdate. The precipitate was washed with weak nitric acid and the combined
filtrate and washings neutralized with ammonia. The resultant precipitate was dissolved in a
solution of ammonium nitrate and nitric acid, filtered, and again precipitated with ammonia. In
two instances the quantities of material recovered after ignition were 56.9 and 57.3 milligrams,
respectively, instead of the theoretical amount, viz., 56.4 milligrams.
When the work was repeated after the addition of 400 milligrams of calcium oxid the weight
of the precipitate recovered was 62.3 and 63.1 milligrams in duplicate determinations. Similar
determinations were made with a known weight, viz., 35.6 milligrams of alumina. The treatment
of the mixture was precisely as indicated above for iron. The quantity of alumina finally obtained
was 28.9 and 29.3 milligrams, respectively, in duplicate determinations. When the lime was
added, however, the weights of alumina, recovered, fell to 19.8 and 20.6 milligrams,
respectively. These results show that the molybdate method for the separation of iron and
alumina in the presence of a large excess of lime and phosphoric acid is subject to widely
varying results, but that the error due to the excess of iron in the weighed product is partly
corrected by the one due to deficiency of alumina.
42. Method of Wyatt.—A method largely used in this country, both in private laboratories
and by fertilizer factories, for determining iron and alumina, is described by Wyatt[33]. It is
claimed for this method that, while it may not be strictly accurate, yet it is rapid and easy, and in
the hands of trained analysts yields concordant results. Fifty cubic centimeters of the first
solution of the sample in aqua regia, or an amount thereof equivalent to one gram of the
phosphate, in a beaker, are rendered alkaline by ammonia. The resulting precipitate is first
redissolved by hydrochloric acid, and a slight alkalinity is again produced with ammonia. Fifty
cubic centimeters of strong acetic acid are next added, the mixture stirred and placed in a cool
place and left until cold. The precipitate is then separated by filtration and washed twice with
boiling water. The vessel holding the filtrate is replaced by the beaker in which the precipitation
was made. The precipitate is dissolved in a little fifty per cent hot hydrochloric acid and the filter
washed with hot water. After rendering slightly alkaline, as in the first instance, the treatment
with acetic acid is repeated as described. The precipitate is washed this time, twice with cold
water containing a little acetic acid and three times with hot water. The precipitate is dried,
ignited, and weighed as iron and aluminum phosphate. Half of this weight may be taken to
represent the quantity of iron and aluminum oxids.
To separate the iron and alumina the precipitate just described is dissolved in hot
hydrochloric acid, filtered into a 100 cubic centimeter flask, and made up to the mark by hot
wash-water.
The phosphoric acid is determined in one-half of the filtrate and in the remaining half the iron
is reduced with zinc and determined with potassium permanganate in the usual way. The
phosphoric acid and iron having been thus determined the alumina is estimated by difference.
The chief objection to this process is in the excessive quantity of acetic acid used and the
danger of solution of the precipitated phosphates caused thereby.
43. Estimation of the Lime and Magnesia.—The filtrate and washings from the first
precipitation, (paragraph 41,) of iron and alumina in the method of Krug and McElroy, above
described, are collected and sufficient ammonium oxalate is added to precipitate the calcium.
The precipitated calcium is very fine and should be collected on a gooch, under pressure. The
filtrate and washings from the calcium precipitate are again collected, and a solution of sodium
phosphate added to precipitate the magnesia. The solution must be kept cool and slightly
alkaline with ammonia during the above operations in order to prevent the separation of
molybdic anhydrid.
44. Estimation of Sulfuric Acid.—As a rule, sulfates are not abundant in mineral
phosphates. In case the samples are pyritiferous, however, considerable quantities of sulfuric
acid may be found after treatment with aqua regia.
The acid is precipitated with barium chlorid, in the usual way, in an aliquot portion of the
filtrate first obtained. The precipitate of barium sulfate is washed with hot water until clean, dried,
ignited, and weighed. If the portion of the filtrate taken represent half a gram of the original
material then the weight of barium sulfate obtained multiplied by 0.6858 will give the quantity of
sulfur trioxid in one gram.
45. Estimation of Fluorin by the Method of Berzelius as Modified by Chatard.—The
method of estimating fluorin as proposed by Berzelius, has been found quite satisfactory in the
laboratory of the Geological Survey, with the modifications given below.[34]
Two grams of the phosphate are intimately mixed in a large platinum crucible with three
grams of precipitated silica and twelve grams of pure sodium carbonate, and the mixture is
gradually brought to clear fusion over the blast-lamp. When the fusion is complete the melt is
spread over the walls of the crucible, which is then rapidly cooled (preferably by a blast of air). If
this have been properly done, the mass separates easily from the crucible, and the subsequent
leaching is hastened. The mass, detached from the crucible, is put into a platinum dish into
which whatever remains adhering to the crucible, or its lid, is also washed with hot water. A
reasonable amount of hot water is now put into the dish, which is covered and digested on the
water-bath until the mass is thoroughly disintegrated. To hasten this, the supernatant liquid may,
after awhile, be poured off, the residue being washed into a small porcelain mortar, ground up,
returned to the dish and boiled with fresh water until no hard grains are left. The total liquid is
then filtered, and the residue is washed with hot water. The filtrate (which should amount to
about half a liter) is nearly neutralized with nitric acid (methyl orange being used as indicator),
some pure sodium bicarbonate is at once added, and the solution (in a platinum dish, if one
large enough is at disposal, otherwise in a beaker) is placed on the water-bath, when it speedily
becomes turbid through separation of silica. As soon as the solution is warm it is removed from
the bath, stirred, allowed to stand for two or three hours, and then filtered by means of the filter-
pump and washed with cold water.
The filtrate is concentrated to about a quarter of a liter and nearly neutralized, as before,
some sodium carbonate is added, and the phosphoric acid is precipitated with silver nitrate in
excess. The precipitate is separated by filtration and washed with hot water, and the excess of
silver in the filtrate is removed with sodium chlorid.
The filtrate from the silver chlorid (after addition of some sodium bicarbonate) is evaporated
to its crystallizing point, then cooled and diluted with cold water; still more sodium bicarbonate is
added, and the whole is allowed to stand, when additional silica will separate, and this is to be
removed by filtration.
This final solution is nearly neutralized, as before; a little sodium carbonate solution is added;
it is heated to boiling and an excess of solution of calcium chlorid is added. The precipitate of
calcium fluorid and carbonate must be boiled for a few minutes, when it can be easily filtered
and washed with hot water. The precipitate is then washed from the filter into a small platinum
dish and evaporated to dryness, while the filter, after being partially dried and used to wipe off
any particles of the precipitate adhering to the dish in which it was formed, is burned, and the
ash is added to the main precipitate. This, when dry, is ignited, and allowed to cool; dilute acetic
acid is added in excess, and the whole is evaporated to dryness, being kept on the water-bath
until all odor of acetic acid has disappeared. The residue is then treated with hot water,
digested, filtered on a small filter, washed with hot water, partially dried, put into a crucible,
carefully ignited, and weighed as calcium fluorid. The calcium fluorid is then dissolved in sulfuric
acid by gentle heating and agitation, evaporated to dryness on a radiator, ignited at full red heat,
and weighed as calcium sulfate. From this weight the equivalent weight of calcium fluorid should
be calculated, and this should be very close to that actually found as above, but should never
exceed it. The difference, which is generally about a milligram (sometimes more), is due to silica
precipitated with the fluorid. The percentage of fluorin is, therefore, always calculated from the
weight of the sulfate, and not from that of the fluorid obtained.
The main improvements in this method are the use of sodium bicarbonate to separate the
silica, and the keeping of the earlier solutions as dilute as possible, which can not be done, if
ammonium carbonate be used for the separation of the silica. These changes make the fluorin
estimation, although still tedious, far more rapid than before, and the results are very
satisfactory.
46. Modification of Wyatt.—By reason of the tediousness of the method of Chatard given
above, Wyatt has sought to shorten the process by the following modification:[35]
Five grams of the finely ground phosphate are fused in a platinum dish with fifteen grams of
the mixed carbonates of sodium and potassium and three grams of fine sand. After fusing very
thoroughly with a strong heat for a quarter of an hour, the dish is removed from the fire and
cooled. Its contents, dissolved in hot water, are then put into a half liter flask, and a considerable
excess of ammonium carbonate is added to the liquid. All the soluble silica falls out of solution,
and the flask, after cooling, is made up to the mark with distilled water, well shaken, and then set
aside for twenty-four hours to settle. At the end of this time 200 cubic centimeters are carefully
decanted through a filter; the filter is well washed, and the filtrate, after being nearly neutralized
with hydrochloric acid, is treated with an excess of calcium chlorid solution.
The precipitate, consisting of phosphate, fluorid, and some calcium carbonate, is allowed to
settle, and is then carefully washed with boiling water, first by decantation several times, and
finally on the filter. After being properly dried in the gas-oven, calcined, and cooled, the residue
is treated with acetic acid, placed upon the water-bath, and evaporated to complete dryness.
The calcium acetate is now well washed out by several treatments with boiling water, and the
residue is brought upon a filter, dried, calcined, and weighed. The weight represents the calcium
phosphate and fluorid contained in two grams of the original sample; and if the calcium
phosphate in the residue be determined, according to the usual methods, the difference will be
calcium fluorid and may be thus estimated.
Example.—Assuming the calcined residue of calcium phosphate and
fluorid in two grains of the original sample to have amounted to one and
six-tenths gram and the calcium phosphate in this quantity to have been
determined as 1.540 gram, the calcium fluorid is thus proved to be 0.060
gram, and, therefore, 2: 0.60::100: x = 3 per cent calcium fluorid which,
multiplied by 0.4897, gives 1.46 per cent of fluorin.
The above method, while shorter, is not to be preferred to the Chatard process when great
accuracy is desired. All the soluble silica may not fall out of the solution as Wyatt says. Finally
the fluorin is calculated from small differences in the weight of very heavy precipitates and all
the error of the process may be found affecting the numbers for fluorin. For commercial
purposes, however, the method is to be recommended for its comparative brevity.
GENERAL METHODS FOR ESTIMATING

PHOSPHORIC ACID IN FERTILIZERS.
47. Preliminary Considerations.—The chief sources of the phosphoric acid in commercial
fertilizers are the mineral phosphates and bones. In respect of the analyses of mineral
phosphates detailed directions have been given in the preceding pages. Bones are valuable for
fertilizing materials, both because of their content of phosphoric acid and of their organic
nitrogen. The methods of treating bones for their phosphoric acid will be found in the general
methods for fertilizing materials, and their nitrogen content can be determined by the processes
to be described hereafter. Other fertilizing materials also contain phosphorus, as ashes,
tankage, oil cakes, and other organic products. In general, the methods for determining the
phosphoric acid is the same in all cases, but the means of destroying the organic matter
precedent to the analysis vary in different cases. In most cases a simple ignition is sufficient,
while, if the phosphorus be found in certain organic products, the oxidation must be
accomplished by one of the methods described in the processes adopted by the official
chemists, or by the means described in volume first, paragraph 378 or 382. In all cases of acid
phosphates and superphosphates, the water and ammonium citrate soluble phosphoric acid is
to be determined as well as the total. In basic slags the amount soluble in ammonium citrate or
dilute citric acid is also to be ascertained.
In all cases where soluble or so-called reverted acid is to be considered, the analysis must
be performed without previous desiccation or ignition. If water content or loss on ignition are to
be considered, the operation to determine them must be conducted on a separate part of the
sample.
The methods of analysis which have been adopted by associations of chemists should be
given the preference in the conduct of the work, although it must be admitted that they may
contain sources of error, and may be in no respect superior to processes employed by chemists
in their private capacity. In this country the methods adopted by the Association of Official
Agricultural Chemists should be followed as closely as possible. The great merit of other
methods, however, must not be denied. Especially those methods which shorten the time
required or diminish the labor and expense of the analysis are worthy of careful consideration. In
factory work, for instance, it is often far more important for the chemist to be able to rapidly
determine the phosphoric acid in a great number of samples with approximate accuracy than to
confine his work to one with absolute precision. Some of the shorter methods, moreover, notably
the citrate process, appear to be quite, if not altogether, as reliable as the molybdate method,
while in the case of the uranium volumetric process, it must not be forgotten that it is almost the
only one practiced in France. Other volumetric processes are given in full, as, for instance, the
one perfected by Pemberton, but data are still lacking to justify their strong recommendation. It
should be remembered that this manual is not written for the beginner but rather for the chemist
already acquainted with the principles and practice of general chemical analysis, and it is,
therefore, expected that each analyst will make intelligent use of the data placed at his disposal.
48. Determination of Phosphoric Acid with Preliminary Precipitation as Stannic
Phosphate.—This method, once much in use and highly recommended, is now almost
unknown among the processes of fertilizer control. It was first proposed and described by
Girard, and rests on the precipitation of the phosphoric acid in a nitric acid solution by means of
metallic tin.[36] The stannic acid formed by the oxidation of the tin unites with the phosphoric
acid held in a free state by the nitric acid. The precipitation of the phosphoric acid is said to be
complete, but a trace of it has been found in the iron and alumina subsequently separated from
the solution. The precipitate obtained is dissolved in caustic potash, whereby soluble potassium
metastannate and phosphate are obtained. Following is the method of conducting the analysis
as described by Crookes:[37]
The phosphate should be dissolved in nitric acid, and any chlorin present be expelled by
repeated evaporations with the solvent. Finally, to the evaporated mass the strongest nitric acid
is added. Pure tin-foil is added and heat applied. The phosphoric acid is precipitated by the
stannic acid formed. The quantity of tin used should be from six to eight times as great as that of
the phosphoric acid present.
The precipitate is collected on a filter, washed, and dissolved in caustic potash. The solution
is saturated with hydrogen sulfid, and on adding acetic acid in slight excess the tin sulfid is
separated and removed by filtration. The whole of the phosphoric acid, supposed to be almost
free of tin, is now found in the filtrate. The filtrate is concentrated to small bulk and any tin sulfid
present separated by filtering, and the phosphoric acid finally removed from the ammoniacal
filtrate by precipitation with magnesia mixture. The chief difficulties of this method are to be
found, on the one hand, in the retention of some of the phosphoric acid by the iron and alumina
which may be present, and on the other, in the presence of some tin in the final magnesium
pyrophosphate. If the tin be all removed as sulfid, the latter source of error will be avoided. It is
difficult to secure pure metallic tin, and this is another disturbing element in the process. It can
not be recommended for the work which agricultural analysts are usually called on to perform.
[38]
49. Water-Soluble Phosphoric Acid.—The method of procedure recommended by the

Association of Official Chemists is as follows:[39] Place two grams of the sample in a nine
centimeter filter; wash with successive small portions of cold water, allowing each portion to
pass through before adding more, until the filtrate measures about 250 cubic centimeters. If the
filtrate be turbid, add a little nitric acid. Make up to any convenient definite volume; mix well; take
any convenient portion and proceed as under total phosphoric acid.
50. Citrate-Insoluble Phosphoric Acid.—Heat 100 cubic centimeters of strictly neutral
ammonium citrate solution of 1.09 specific gravity to 65° in a flask placed in a bath of warm
water, keeping the flask loosely stoppered to prevent evaporation. When the citrate solution in
the flask has reached 65°, drop into it the filter containing the washed residue from the water-
soluble phosphoric acid determination, close tightly with a smooth rubber stopper, and shake
violently until the filter paper is reduced to a pulp. Place the flask back into the bath and
maintain the water in the bath at such a temperature that the contents of the flask will stand at
exactly 65°. Shake the flask every five minutes. At the expiration of exactly thirty minutes from
the time the filter and residue were introduced, remove the flask from the bath and immediately
filter as rapidly as possible. It has been shown by Sanborn, in this laboratory, that the filtration is
greatly facilitated by adding asbestos pulp. Wash thoroughly with water at 65°. Transfer the filter
and its contents to a crucible, ignite until all organic matter is destroyed, add from ten to fifteen
cubic centimeters of strong hydrochloric acid, and digest until all phosphate is dissolved; or
return the filter with contents to the digestion flask, add from thirty to thirty-five cubic centimeters
of strong nitric, and from five to ten cubic centimeters of strong hydrochloric acid, and boil until
all the phosphate is dissolved. Dilute the solution to 200 cubic centimeters. If desired, the filter
and its contents can be treated according to methods (1), (2), or (3), under total phosphoric acid.
Mix well; filter through a dry filter; take a definite portion of the filtrate and proceed as under total
phosphoric acid.
In case a determination of citrate-insoluble phosphoric acid be required in non-acidulated
goods it is to be made by treating two grams of the phosphatic material, without previous
washing with water, precisely in the way above described, except that in case the substance
contain much animal matter (bone, fish, etc.), the residue insoluble in ammonium citrate is to be
treated by one of the processes described below under total phosphoric acid, (1), (2), or (3).
51. Total Phosphoric Acid.—In case of ignition the residual material is to be dissolved in
hydrochloric acid. The following methods of treating the raw material, using two grams in each
case, may be employed: (1) Evaporate with five cubic centimeters of magnesium nitrate, ignite,
and dissolve in hydrochloric acid. (2) Boil in a Kjeldahl flask graduated to 250 cubic centimeters,
with from twenty to thirty cubic centimeters of strong sulfuric acid, adding from two to four grams
of sodium or potassium nitrate at the beginning of the digestion and a small quantity after the
solution has become nearly colorless; or adding the nitrate in small portions from time to time.
After the solution is colorless, add 150 cubic centimeters of water and boil for a few minutes,
cool, and make up to volume. (3) Digest with strong sulfuric acid and such other reagents as are
used in either the plain or modified Kjeldahl or Gunning methods for estimating nitrogen. Do not
add any potassium permanganate, but after the solution has become colorless add about 100
cubic centimeters of water and boil for a few minutes, cool, and make up to a convenient
volume; two and five-tenths grams of substance and a digestion flask graduated to 250 cubic
centimeters are recommended. This method will be found convenient when both the nitrogen
and the total phosphoric acid are to be determined in a fertilizer. In this case, after diluting the
volume and mixing, a part for the estimation of nitrogen, may be removed with a pipette and the
remainder then filtered through a dry filter and a portion taken for the determination of the total
phosphoric acid. (4) Dissolve in thirty cubic centimeters of concentrated nitric acid and a small
quantity of hydrochloric acid. (5) Add thirty cubic centimeters of concentrated hydrochloric acid,
heat, and add cautiously, in small quantities at a time, about five-tenths gram of finely-pulverized
potassium chlorate. (6) Dissolve in from fifteen to thirty cubic centimeters of strong hydrochloric
and from three to ten cubic centimeters of nitric acid. This method is recommended for fertilizers
containing much iron or aluminum phosphate. Boil until all phosphates are dissolved and all
organic matter is destroyed; cool and dilute to 200 or 250 cubic centimeters; mix and pass
through a dry filter; take an aliquot part of the filtrate corresponding to a quarter, half, or one
gram, neutralize with ammonia, and clear with a few drops of nitric acid. In case hydrochloric or
sulfuric acid have been used as a solvent, add about fifteen grams of dry ammonium nitrate.
To the hot solutions, for every decigram of phosphorus pentoxid that is present, add fifty
cubic centimeters of molybdic solution. Digest at about 65° for an hour, filter, and wash with
water or ammonium nitrate solution. Test the filtrate by renewed digestion and the addition of
more molybdic solution. Dissolve the precipitate on the filter with ammonia and hot water and
wash into a beaker to a bulk of not more than 100 cubic centimeters. Nearly neutralize with
hydrochloric acid, cool, and add magnesia mixture from a burette; add slowly (about one drop
per second), stirring vigorously. After fifteen minutes add thirty cubic centimeters of ammonia
solution of 0.95 density. Let stand for some time; two hours are usually enough. Filter, wash with
dilute ammonia, ignite gently at first and then at white heat for ten minutes, and weigh. For the
quantity of magnesia mixture to be added see paragraph 21.
52. Citrate-Soluble Phosphoric Acid.—The sum of the water-soluble and citrate-insoluble
subtracted from the total gives the citrate-soluble phosphoric acid.
53. Preparation of Reagents.—(1) Ammonium Citrate Solution.—(a) Mix 370 grams of
commercial citric acid with 1,500 cubic centimeters of water, nearly neutralize with commercial
ammonia, cool, add ammonia until exactly neutral (testing with saturated alcoholic solution of
corallin) and bring to a volume of two liters. Test the specific gravity, which should be 1.09 at
20°, before using.
(b) Alternate Method.—To 370 grams of commercial citric acid add commercial ammonia, of
0.96 specific gravity, until nearly neutral; reduce the specific gravity to nearly 1.09 and proceed
as follows: Prepare a solution of fused calcium chlorid 200 grams to the liter, and add four
volumes of strong alcohol. Make the mixture exactly neutral, using a small amount of freshly
prepared corallin solution as a preliminary indicator, and test finally by withdrawing a portion,
diluting with an equal volume of water, and testing with cochineal solution. Fifty cubic
centimeters of this solution will precipitate the citric acid from ten cubic centimeters of the citrate
solution. To ten cubic centimeters of the nearly neutral citrate solution add fifty cubic centimeters
of the alcoholic calcium chlorid solution, stir well, filter at once through a folded filter, dilute with
an equal volume of water, and test the reaction with neutral solution of cochineal. If acid or
alkaline, add ammonia or citric acid, as the case may be, to the citrate solution, mix, and test
again as before. Repeat this process until a neutral reaction of the citrate solution is obtained. At
the end the specific gravity must be 1.09 at 20°.
(2) Molybdic Solution.—See paragraph 22.
(3) Ammonium Nitrate Solution.—Dissolve 200 grams of commercial ammonium nitrate in
water and bring to a volume of two liters.
(4) Magnesia Mixture.—See paragraph 22.
(5) Dilute Ammonia for Washing.—See paragraph 22.
(6) Magnesium Nitrate.—Dissolve 320 grams of calcined magnesia in nitric acid, avoiding an
excess of the latter; then add a little calcined magnesia in excess, boil, filter from the excess of
magnesia, ferric oxid, etc., and bring to volume of two liters.
54. Official Methods with Norwegian Fertilizers.—The Director of the Chemical Control
Station of Norway, expresses the opinion, that for Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and German
conditions, the American methods for the determination of phosphoric acid, notwithstanding
their analytical exactness, are quite inapplicable.[40] In those countries are found many, in part,
poorly pulverized and badly mixed manures, such as ammonium superphosphate, potassium
superphosphate, and potassium ammonium superphosphate, and these can not usually be so
well pulverized and mixed that one can take out a true average sample of from two to two and
five-tenths grams. Care in the analysis is useless when the material employed does not
represent the average condition of the materials investigated. Therefore, in the countries
named, often from ten to twenty grams, and almost never less than five grams of substance are
taken in the preparation of the solutions, except for instance, in the determination of nitrogen
and reverted phosphoric acid.
55. The Molybdic Acid Method, as Practiced by Direction of the Union of the German
Experiment Stations.—The method adopted by the German Experiment Stations is essentially
that used at Halle.[41] The samples are brought into solution in the following way: For the
estimation of phosphoric acid in bone-meal, fish-guano and raw phosphates, and the total
phosphoric acid in superphosphates, five grams of the sample are dissolved in fifty cubic
centimeters of aqua regia, made of three parts of hydrochloric acid of 1.12 specific gravity and
one part of nitric acid of 1.25 specific gravity, or the solution may be made of a mixture of twenty
cubic centimeters of nitric acid of 1.42 specific gravity and fifty cubic centimeters of sulfuric acid
of 1.8 specific gravity. The boiling should continue for half an hour. The solution is made up to
half a liter and filtered. Fifty cubic centimeters of the filtrate containing the phosphoric acid, with
double superphosphates twenty-five cubic centimeters, are digested with 200 cubic centimeters
of ammonium molybdate solution for three hours at 50° in a water-bath and, after cooling,
filtered, so that as little as possible of the precipitate is collected upon the filter, which is made of
strong paper.
The yellow precipitate is washed by decantation in the flask nine times with twenty cubic
centimeters of molybdic solution diluted with one volume of water and the filter washed out once
with the same quantity of liquid. The funnel, with the filter, is immediately placed upon the flask
and the portion of the precipitate collected in the filter dissolved in five per cent ammonia, which

French Rule In The States Of Parma 1796 1814 Working With Napoleon Doina Pasca Harsanyi full chapter pdf docx

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

French Rule In The States Of Parma 1796 1814 Working With Napoleon Doina Pasca Harsanyi full chapter pdf docx

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

French Rule In The States Of Parma 1796 1814 Working With Napoleon Doina Pasca Harsanyi full chapter pdf docx

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

French Rule in the States of Parma,

1796-1814: Working with Napoleon

Global History with Chinese Characteristics: Autocratic

French Liberalism and Imperialism in the Age of

Global History with Chinese Characteristics: Autocratic

The Global Rule of Three: Competing with Conscious

Prosecution of the President of the United States: The

The Wisdom of Napoleon Hill Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill: Adversity & Advantage: Achieving Success

Regional Organizations and Democracy, Human Rights, and

French Rule in the

Doina Pasca Harsanyi

More information about this series at

French Rule in the

ISSN 2634-6699 ISSN 2634-6702 (electronic)

Mount Pleasant, MI Doina Pasca Harsanyi

I am delighted to acknowledge at long last the many debts I incurred

I wish to thank Palgrave Macmillan’s anonymous reviewers for insight-

3 Parma and Bonaparte 31

4 From Duchies of Parma to States of Parma 53

5 Watershed: The Insurrection 77

6 Explanatory Narratives: Brigandage107

8 Order into Chaos163

9 Wooing the Elites195

11 The End of the Road: Conclusions241

AMAE Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris

In December 1805, a violent insurrection broke out in mountain villages

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Bonaparte launched the First Italian campaign, Parma was undergoing a

Modernization approaches tend to focus on the good.4 Early monographs

­istoriography review, innovative methodologies greatly enriched our

215–250 (217–218). Englund referred to Stuart Woolf, Napoleon’s integration of Europe

the centralized, scientific, secular, bureaucratic, that is, modern, model of

position on the Napoleonic chessboard, which, however, also accounts for

this made the administrative machinery more intelligible and easier

Bonaparte ignored the duchies’ neutrality and redistributed parts of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 9

Ralliement Avant la Lettre

engineering’.7 Vast as the programme was, the prime minister treaded

Administration, Legislation and Tax Collection

commissioners, ran every commune, large or small, and reported to the

favourite tactic, attuned to the encyclopaedic spirit of the times: carefully

Agriculture and Industry

reform did not go further than occasional experiments undertaken, on

Parma), founded in 1760 to coordinate further excavations at Veleia, and

The University of Parma

place: educating Ferdinand, future ruler of the duchies and son of Du

The Education of the Infant

d’Alembert on 17 November 1760: ‘It seems that the Parmense Infant is

educational project came to nothing. As soon as he reached majority and

Dashed Hopes and the End of Reforms

reproach, as did Ferdinand’s other guardian, the king of Spain.37 Louis XV

on the night of 19 November 1771; his most prestigious French associates

Parma and Bonaparte

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 31

Duke Ferdinand followed the French Revolution closely. He was excep-

4 CaH₄(PO₄)₂ = Ca₂P₂O₇ + Ca(PO₃)₂ + CaH₂P₂O₇ + 2 H₃PO₄ + 4 H₂O.

8[CaH₄(PO₄)₂·H₂O] = 4CaH₄(PO₄)₂ + Ca(PO₃)₂ + Ca₂P₂O₇

4CaH₄(PO₄)₂ + Ca(PO₃)₂ + Ca₂P₂O₇ + CaH₂P₂O₇ + 2H₃PO₄

Mount Pleasant, MI Doina Pasca Harsanyi

3 Parma and Bonaparte 31

4 From Duchies of Parma to States of Parma 53

5 Watershed: The Insurrection 77

6 Explanatory Narratives: Brigandage107

8 Order into Chaos163

9 Wooing the Elites195

11 The End of the Road: Conclusions241

istoriography review, innovative methodologies greatly enriched our