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4 unusual facts about Louis de Potter


Louis de Potter

The author's aim in this work was to glorify Josephinism, the justification of the reforms carried out in Tuscany under the auspices of grand duke Pietro Leopold I of Tuscany, brother of Joseph II.

During his stay in Florence, he had access to the archives and library of Bishop Ricci - minister-counsellor of the Grand-Duke of Habsbourg - it was there that he gathered the materials for a third work, Vie de Scipion de Ricci, évêque de Pistoie et de Prato (Life of Scipione de' Ricci, bishop of Pistoia and of Prato).

He belonged to a rich noble family (his father was the Esquire Clément de Potter de Droogenwalle) which sought asylum in Germany after the second French invasion of the Southern Netherlands in 1794 and remained there until the Consulate.

He spent 12 years in Italy (in Rome from 1811 to 1821 and in Florence from 1821 to 1823) to study the history of the Roman Catholic church, though he studied it with the prejudices which predominated in Enlightenment thoughts.



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