Una Repubblica tra due re: la declaration di Giacomo Stuart, l'imbarazzo di Lucca e il ruolo di John Molesworth

On 10 September 1722, from Bagni di Lucca, where he had joined his wife Clementina Sobieska, the pretender James Stuart managed to elude the generous but watchful welcome planned by the Republic and to issue a proclamation claiming the British throne. His Declaration has not received in the international scholarly literature the attention it deserves. This article completes the reconstruction of James's expedient stay in Lucca, begun in “A Republic between Two Kings: The Stuart Pretender's Visit to Lucca in the Weeks of the Atterbury Plot” (Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, no. 42). This second instalment examines the various 'readings' of the document and the diplomatic headaches that the covert printing of the proclamation caused to the leaders of the tiny state when - as the European powers were discussing the prospective succession to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany with significant input from king George - several copies were seized in London and appeared in the major European courts, from Vienna to Florence. The main actors in this incident are the Lucchese ambassador Carlo Orsucci, then on post in Florence after a long tenure in Madrid, and the British envoy to Turin, John Molesworth, who is notable not only for his diplomatic career (he had been in Florence in 1711-14) but also, and perhaps especially, for his role as a cultural and artistic mediator, as was typical of European diplomats accredited at Italian courts. © 2018 Mediterranea. All rights reserved.