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COLONIAL GOVERNMENTALITY IN THE IONIAN ISLANDS
Another ‘Academy’, of the ‘Fertili’, aimed at improving agricultural production
and was founded in 1676 by Augoustino Capello and was meeting at least until
1678. In 1734 a new academy of the Περιπλανώμενοι consolidated the interests, enquiries
and intellectual pursuits especially among some members of Corfu aristocratic
families and discussed mostly theological issues, continuing the tradition of
collective organization 21 . These meetings promoted a common worldview outside the
standard norm of political organization of power and created a space where debate
was possible, especially among those not included in the city’s Council of 150 22 . Towards
the end of the period of Venetian rule, the governor of Kefalonia, De Zorzi,
mobilised those interested when he founded an ‘Agronomical Academy’ in 1791
and endowed it with 150 ducats per year. The intellectual pursuits, besides poerty
and other literary fields, included the economic development of the island of Kefalonia.
The Academy aimed at modernizing agriculture 23 . The ‘doctor-philosopher’
Francisco Zulatti devised the constitution stating explicitly the aim of development
and increase of agricultural production, which included draining of marshes and
improvement of vinticulture, aims that would be continued later in the British period,
with the greater intervention of state and individuals and a more clear institutional
mandate and a higher caliber.
These institutions were essentially clubs of readers and promoters of useful
knowledge and anticipated the associations and clubs of the British period 24 . It is
interesting that the first newspaper of the Ionian Islands, ‘Gazetta Urbana’ (1802-
1805) was published by Marios Pieris and Andreas Moustoxidis and their society
for the pursuit of useful knowledge. Ionian doctors promoted their own organization:
the Collegio Medico, a medical association was founded in Corfu in 1802 with
the initiative of the young Ioannis Kapodistrias after his period of studies in Padua.
This was probably the first professional organization of the Ionian Islands except
the centuries-old fraternities and it included a Jewish doctor, Lazaro Mordo. The
Collegio Medico, founded in 1802 and the Ionian Academy in 1808 25 , were the two
most important voluntary associations for the spread of useful, specific as well as
general knowledge. The Collegio Medico promoted in 1805 the inoculation of the
population against smallpox in all the islands, it was meeting monthly in the house
of Ioannis Laskaris and supervised the hygiene conditions with sanitary committees,
a practice that continued during the years of the Ionian State 26 .
21 Π. Χιώτου, Ιστορικά Απομνημονεύματα Επτανήσου, vol. 6, Περιέχων την ηθικήν
κατάστασιν από Βενετοκρατίας μέχρι των ημερών ημών, Zakynthos 1887, p. 218-9.
22 Γ. Ν. Ε. Καραπιδάκης, «Από τον κοινοτισμό στην πολιτική: κοινωνιολογία των διανοούμενων
και των ανθρώπων της πολιτικής δράσης στον επτανησιακό χώρο (τέλη του 18ου
αιώνα αρχές του 19ου)», in Α. Νικηφόρου (ed.), Επτάνησος Πολιτεία (1800-1807): τα
μείζονα ιστορικά ζητήματα, Γ.Α.Κ. – Αρχεία Νομού Κέρκυρας, Kerkyra 2001, p. 33-41.
23 Α. Παπαδία-Λάλα, Ο θεσμός των αστικών κοινοτήτων, 421.
24 Π. Χιώτου, Ιστορικά Απομνημονεύματα Επτανήσου, vol. 6, p. 260-4.
25 Σ. Βλασσόπουλος, Στατιστικαί-Ιστορικαί ειδήσεις, p. 21.
26 Π. Χιώτου, Ιστορικά Απομνημονεύματα Επτανήσου, vol. 6, p. 220-1, 229-30.
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