The birth of the Canton of Ticino
Lugano, Bellinzona, Paris
Key figures: Napoleon Bonaparte, Vincenzo Dalberti
Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (German): Canton of Lugano, Canton of Bellinzona
“Free and Swiss” (1798). Until 1798 Lugano, Locarno, Mendrisio, the Vallemaggia, Bellinzona, the Riviera, Blenio and the Leventina are bailiwicks: subject lands administered by bailiffs sent from the cantons north of the Alps. The revolution comes from the south. On the night of 14 to 15 February 1798 a group of pro-French patriots tries to join Lugano to the Cisalpine Republic, created in Lombardy out of Napoleon’s conquests, but the Lugano volunteers drive them back. From those days comes the cry “Liberi e svizzeri”, free and Swiss: free of the bailiffs, but within Switzerland. It will become the motto of Ticino.
Two cantons in the Helvetic Republic (1798–1803). On 14 April 1798 the Helvetic Republic creates two cantons: Lugano, with the former bailiwicks of Lugano, Locarno, Mendrisio and Vallemaggia, and Bellinzona, with Bellinzona, Leventina, Riviera and Blenio. They have little autonomy: they are governed by an administrative chamber and a prefect appointed by the Directory. The new order is unpopular: direct taxes, compulsory military service, monastic property seized, municipalities stripped of their ancient autonomy. French troops occupy the country with heavy requisitions. On 28 and 29 April 1799 an anti-French uprising in Lugano ransacks the Agnelli printing house and kills the abbé Giuseppe Vanelli; then come the Austrians and the Russians, with more plundering and hunger. Two attempts to unite the two cantons, in 1801 and 1802, fail; in the autumn of 1802, on the Pian Povrò near Lugano, an assembly even proclaims the independence of the Lugano region.
The Act of Mediation (19 February 1803). It is Napoleon who ends the disorder. With the Act of Mediation of 19 February 1803, in force from 15 April, he unites the two cantons in the Canton of Ticino, one of six new cantons with equal rights. The new canton has its own constitution, contained in the Act itself; it is divided into eight districts, corresponding to the former bailiwicks, has a Grand Council of 110 members and a government of nine, the Small Council, and Bellinzona as its capital. For the first time Italian-speaking Switzerland is no longer subject land, but a sovereign canton.
The first Grand Council (May 1803). Bellinzona has no building suitable for the new parliament. On 20 May 1803 the first Grand Council meets in the Benedictine convent in the Codeborgo quarter; the following sessions are held in the refectory of the Ursuline convent, outside the walls. On 22 May the Grand Council elects the government, the Small Council, chaired by Vincenzo Dalberti. On 25 May a decree sets the colours of the canton, red and blue: the minutes do not say why, and there are only hypotheses about the reasons for the choice.
A disputed capital. Lugano immediately challenges the primacy of Bellinzona. The constitution of 1814 introduces a rotating capital: every six years the government moves between Bellinzona, Locarno and Lugano. From 1848 the Ursuline convent, dissolved and taken over by the canton, houses the seat of government; with the popular vote of 10 March 1878 Bellinzona becomes the permanent capital. The Palazzo delle Orsoline, altered several times, is still the seat of the Grand Council and the Council of State today.
The coat of arms of the Canton of Ticino, red and blue, colours set by the Grand Council on 25 May 1803
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Helvetic Republic in 1798–1799, with the cantons of Lugano and Bellinzona (modern map, German labels)
Marco Zanoli, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Edme Mentelle and Pierre-Grégoire Chanlaire, Carte physique et politique de la Suisse, Paris, year VI (1798)
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Confederation of the Act of Mediation, 1803–1814: in the south, the new Canton of Ticino (modern map, German labels)
Marco Zanoli, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Palazzo delle Orsoline in Bellinzona, seat of the Grand Council and the Council of State, 2023
Photo Tilman2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0