Buonarroti, Filippo Michele

(1761–1837)

   Conspirator, republican, and agitator, Filippo Buonarroti was a disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau and an early communist. Born in Pisa, he became a French citizen during the revolution and was sent to Italy as a secret agent. After the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, he took part in Babeuf’s unsuccessful “conspiracy of equals” against the Directory and was forced to flee to Geneva. After the return of absolutism to Italy, he organized a secret society called the “Sublime Perfect Masters,” a neomasonic organization with elaborate rituals and hierarchy, whose task was to coordinate revolutionary activity in Italy. In fact, despite his tireless work for the cause, Buonarroti never obtained a serious following among the underground sects. The monarchism of the Carboneria was antithetical to him, although he exerted more influence than Giuseppe Mazzini among its sects. Buonarroti was a republican, like Mazzini, but his political philosophy was inspired by a Robespierrean vision of the need for a dictatorship of the enlightened that was at odds with Mazzini’s more democratic goals. He broke with Mazzini in 1834. Buonarroti was the author of an important treatise on politics, La conspiration pour l’egalite, dite de Babeuf (The Conspiracy for Equality, as Told by Babeuf, 1828), in which he reflected upon the impact of the French Revolution on European politics since 1789. He died in Paris in September 1837.