He was born at
San Giorgio Canavese in
Piedmont. He studied medicine at the
University of Turin, and obtained his doctor's degree when about twenty years old. Having rendered himself obnoxious to the government during the political commotions that followed the
French Revolution, he was imprisoned for over a year; and upon his release in 1795, he withdrew to
France, only to return to his native country as a surgeon in the French army, whose progress he followed as far as
Venice. Here he joined the expedition to
Corfu, from which he did not return to Italy until 1798. At first, he favored French policy in Italy, contributed to the annexation of Piedmont by France in 1799, and was an admirer of Napoleon; but he afterwards changed his views, realizing the necessity for the union of all Italians and for their freedom from foreign control. After the separation of Piedmont from France in 1814, he retired into private life, but, fearing persecution at home, became a French citizen. In 1817, he was appointed
rector of the
University of Rouen, but in 1822 was removed owing to clerical influence. Amid all the vicissitudes of his early manhood, Botta had never allowed his pen to be long idle, and in the political quiet that followed 1816, he naturally devoted himself more exclusively to literature. Botta was elected a member of the
American Philosophical Society in 1816 and a member of the
American Antiquarian Society in 1821. In 1824 he published a history of Italy from 1789 to 1814 (4 vols.), on which his fame principally rests; he himself had been an eyewitness of many of the events described. His continuation of
Guicciardini, which he was afterwards encouraged to undertake, is a careful and laborious work, but is not based on original authorities and is of small value. Though living in
Paris, he was in both these works the ardent exponent of that recoil against everything French which took place throughout Europe. A careful exclusion of all
Gallicisms, as a reaction against the French influences of the day, is one of the marked features of his style, which is not infrequently impassioned and eloquent, though at the same time cumbrous, involved and ornate. == Death ==