Philipe Buonarroti, born in Pisa to a family of local nobility, had studied jurisprudence at the University of Pivora, where he founded what was seen by the authorities of Grand Duke Peter Leopold as a subversive paper, the Gazetta Universale.

Though under constant surveillance by the authorities, the outbreak of the French Revolution had encouraged him to support the revolution.

He had traveled to Corsica to spread the revolutionary message with the Giornale Patriottico di Corsica, the first Italian language paper to openly support the French Revolution.

In Corsica, Buonarroti has joined the Jacobin Club, and become a friend of the Bonapartes.

French authorities confiscate Buonarroti's library of Masonic and subversive books in 1786.