Corte

Corte, a town of central Corsica, 52 m. N.E. of Ajaccio by the railway between that town and Bastia. Pop. (1906) 4839. The upper town is situated on a precipitous rock overhanging the confluence of the Tavignano and Restonica, the rest of the town lying below it on both banks of the rivers. On the summit of the rock stands a citadel built by Vincentello d’Istria (see Corsica). Other interesting buildings are the house in which Pasquale Paoli lived while Corte was the seat of his government (1755 to 1769), and the house of another patriot, Giampietro Gaffori, whose wife defended it from the Genoese in 1750. There are statues of Paoli, of General Gaffori, and of General Arrighi di Casanova, duke of Padua (d. 1853). Corte is capital of an arrondissement of the island, has a subprefecture, a tribunal of first instance and a communal college, and manufactures alimentary paste. There are marble quarries in the vicinity, and the town has trade in wine and timber. In the 18th century Corte was the centre of the resistance to the Genoese, and it was the seat of a university erected by Paoli.

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