Giovanni Maria Angioy

Giovanni Maria Angioy (Sardinian: Juanne Maria Angioy) (21 October 1751, Bono – 22 February 1808, Paris) was a Sardinian politician and patriot and is considered to be a national hero by Sardinian nationalists. Although best known for his political activities, Angioy was a university lecturer, a judge for the Reale Udienza, an entrepreneur and a banker.

From 1794 to 1796, Angioy helped guide the Sardinian revolt which was fought to end the feudal privileges and laws that still existed on the island of Sardinia, and to declare the island to be a republic. In 1796, due to persecution by the ruling House of Savoy, he had to escape from Sardinia. Angioy found refuge in France, where he sought support for a French annexation of the island. He died, unsuccessful, in Paris at the age of fifty-six.

His parents belonged to the Sardinian rural middle class of Bono. During his childhood both his parents died though, first his mother, at the young age of 30, and later his father.

A maternal uncle, Father Thaddeus Arras, took care of Angioy's education. His uncle Thaddeus was his first teacher, but he was also taught by the Fathers Mercedari, a monastic order. Later, Angioy was educated under the supervision of Canon Giovanni Antonio Arras in Sassari. Angioy continued his studies at the Jesuit fathers' school ("Canopoleno"), and at 21 years he had already become a university lecturer, in the law school at the University of Cagliari. Despite his young age he also became a deputy lawyer. Finally, at 39 he became a judge for the Reale Udienza (Sardinia's supreme court).

On the façade of the City Hall of Bono, Sardinia, an inscription says: "To Giovanni Maria Angioy, who inspired by the 1789 Revolution started the Sardinian crusade against the feudal yoke." The ideas of the French Revolution reached Sardinia and had an influence on many intellectuals, despite limited means of communication. Giovanni Maria Angioy had read many French texts, which were a catalyst for sparking his revolutionary views. The spread of the French revolutionary theories was also favored by the fact that Jean Paul Marat, one of the leading figures of the French Revolution had Sardinian ancestry.

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