Léon Guillaume Tillot (Bayonne

Bayonne

Bayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...

, 22 May 1711 — Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, 1774) was a French politician infused with liberal ideals of the Enlightenment, who from 1759 was the minister of the Duchy of Parma

Duchy of Parma

The Duchy of Parma was created in 1545 from that part of the Duchy of Milan south of the Po River, as a fief for Pope Paul III's illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese, centered on the city of Parma....

 under Philip, Duke of Parma

Philip, Duke of Parma

Philip of Spain was Duke of Parma from 1748 to 1765. He founded the House of Bourbon-Parma , a cadet line of the Spanish branch of the dynasty...

 and his wife Princess Louise-Élisabeth of France. At a time when both Bourbon France and Bourbon Spain thought of Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

 as a strategic point of interest, Tillot favoured French policies abroad and wide-ranging reforms within the Duchy of Parma. He was made marchese di Felino.

Tillot's career was of his own making. The son of a valet de chambre

Valet de chambre

Valet de chambre , or varlet de chambre, was a court appointment introduced in the late Middle Ages, common from the 14th century onwards. Royal Households had many persons appointed at any time...

, he studied at the Collège des Quatre-Nations

Collège des Quatre-Nations

The Collège des Quatre-Nations , also known as the Collège Mazarin after its founder, was one of the colleges of the historic University of Paris. It was founded through a bequest by the Cardinal Mazarin...

 at Paris, then went to the court of Charles III of Spain

Charles III of Spain

Charles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...

; after Charles' departure to be King of Sicily, Tillot was attached to the household of Philippe de Bourbon

Philip, Duke of Parma

Philip of Spain was Duke of Parma from 1748 to 1765. He founded the House of Bourbon-Parma , a cadet line of the Spanish branch of the dynasty...

, whose private secretary and treasurer he became. He organised fête

Fête

Fête is a French word meaning festival, celebration or party, which has passed into English as a label that may be given to certain events.-Description:It is widely used in England and Australia in the context of a village fête,...

s for Philippe at Chambéry

Chambéry

Chambéry is a city in the department of Savoie, located in the Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France.It is the capital of the department and has been the historical capital of the Savoy region since the 13th century, when Amadeus V of Savoy made the city his seat of power.-Geography:Chambéry...

 and elsewhere.

Career at Parma

In June 1749, at Louis XV's request he left Paris for Parma, to serve as observer and councillor to Philippe, Louis's son-in-law, who was made Duke of Parma under terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748)

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748)

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748 ended the War of the Austrian Succession following a congress assembled at the Imperial Free City of Aachen—Aix-la-Chapelle in French—in the west of the Holy Roman Empire, on 24 April 1748...

. The Duke immediately named him (29 June 1749), minister of finance (intendant général du coffre) conferring upon Tillot responsibilities for court spending, paymaster of salaries, overseer of the palaces, gardens, court theatre, spectacles and festivities.

In this role, Tillot promoted all forms of French musical theater at the court. He commissioned the "reform opera" Ippolito ed Aricia

Ippolito ed Aricia

Ippolito ed Aricia is a "reform opera" in five acts by Tommaso Traetta with an Italian libretto by Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni. The opera is based upon abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin's libretto for Rameau's earlier opera Hippolyte et Aricie, which was in turn based on Racine's tragedy Phèdre...

from Tommaso Traetta

Tommaso Traetta

Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio Traetta was an Italian composer.-Biography:Traetta was born in Bitonto, a town near Bari, near the top of the heel of the boot of Italy. He eventually became a pupil of the composer, singer and teacher Nicola Porpora in Naples, and scored a first success with his...

 with a libretto based upon Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin

Simon-Joseph Pellegrin

The abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin was a French poet and playwright, a librettist who collaborated with Jean-Philippe Rameau and other composers.-Biography:...

's libretto for Rameau's earlier opera Hippolyte et Aricie

Hippolyte et Aricie

Hippolyte et Aricie was the first opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, which opened to great controversy at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris on October 1, 1733. The libretto, by Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, is based on Racine's tragedy Phèdre. The opera takes the traditional form of a tragédie en...

, which was in turn based on Racine's tragedy Phèdre

Phèdre

Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...

. The opera premiered at the Teatro Ducale in Parma on 9 May 1759, and is still sometimes mounted.

Tillot's capabilities were soon rewarded with the position of minister of public finance, and then of first minister. His ministry, modernizing and liberalizing the Duchy's official functions, helped boost its economy. On 20 June 1764, Tillot was made marchese di Felino, receiving its lands as well as those of San Michele Tiorre.

Tillot, like a latter-day Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...

, reorganized Parmesan luxury productions: gloves, velvet and other fine textiles, and featherdressing. He enticed from France and Switzerland masterworkers in these crafts, to teach their arts locally. Out of the Ducal purse, he conceded tax relief, patronage and financial support for the new industries, and offered state pensions for craftsmen who had taken on apprentices in Parma. In agriculture, partly in response to the famine years of 1763-67, which devastated the Mezzogiorno

Mezzogiorno

The Midday is a wide definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the southern half of the Italian state, encompassing the southern section of the continental Italian Peninsula and the two major islands of Sicily and Sardinia, in addition to a large number of minor islands...

 and were felt in the North, he encouraged cultivation of the potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

, still a novelty in Europe. For the better flow of people and goods, he improved roads and bridges, canalised waterways and liberalised importation and exportation. In these undertakings he was aided by the longest period of peace Italy had known.

Tillot placed his influence with the Bourbon courts of France, Spain and Naples, in reducing antiquated ecclesiastical privileges, even the freedom from taxation of properties of the Church. The Roman Inquisition

Roman Inquisition

The Roman Inquisition was a system of tribunals developed by the Holy See during the second half of the 16th century, responsible for prosecuting individuals accused of a wide array of crimes related to heresy, including Protestantism, sorcery, immorality, blasphemy, Judaizing and witchcraft, as...

 was abolished in the territories of Parma, and some decayed monasteries were secularised. Pope Clement XIII

Pope Clement XIII

Pope Clement XIII , born Carlo della Torre di Rezzonico, was Pope from 16 July 1758 to 2 February 1769....

 condemned the expulsion of the Jesuits

Suppression of the Jesuits

The Suppression of the Jesuits in the Portuguese Empire, France, the Two Sicilies, Parma and the Spanish Empire by 1767 was a result of a series of political moves rather than a theological controversy. By the brief Dominus ac Redemptor Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus...

 from Parma (8 February 1768).

Along with the reorganisation of the ducal library, Tillot assembled his private one, in which the works of the Encyclopédistes and the Encyclopédie

Encyclopédie

Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert...

were to be found. Tillot instituted an Académie des Beaux Arts, a museum of Antiquities, a ducal printing-press, which produced the Gazzetta di Parma. He reorganised the University of Parma

University of Parma

The University of Parma is one of the oldest universities in the world, founded in the 11th century. It is organised in twelve faculties. The University of Parma has currently about 30,000 students.-History:...

, one of Europe's oldest, from its somnolence; for a brief spell it ranked among the progressive universities of Italy, with Milan, Pavia and Modena.

Around Tillot an Enlightened circle gathered: Condillac

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac was a French philosopher and epistemologist who studied in such areas as psychology and the philosophy of the mind.-Biography:...

, Paolo Maria Paciaudi, the typographer and publisher Giambattista Bodoni

Giambattista Bodoni

Giambattista Bodoni was an Italian engraver, publisher, printer and typographer of high repute remembered for designing a family of different typefaces called Bodoni....

, the sculptor Jean Baptiste Boudard, and Tillot's guest at the court of Parma, the architect Ennemond Alexandre Petitot, who arrived in 1753 and provided designs for the renovated face of Parma. Petitot modified the facade of the church of San Pietro, rebuilt the governor's palace, and carried out interior remodelling in the Palazzo della Riserva, the Stradone, and the ducal Palazzo del Giardino, laid out in the French manner with sculptures by Boudard. Petitot survived Tillot's disgrace, took over Tillot's early employment as master of ceremonies and remained court architect at Parma until his death in 1801.

In 1756, Tillot invited to court Guillaume Rouby de Cals, whom he employed first in the financial administration, then as his personal secretary and aide. Rouby de Cals directed the first manufactory of military cloth in Parma, in Borgo San Donnino, now Fidenza.

The fall of Tillot

With the accession to the Duchy of the somewhat simple Ferdinand, Duke of Parma

Ferdinand, Duke of Parma

Ferdinand Maria Philip Louis Sebastian Francis James of Parma was Duke of Parma from 1765 to 1802. He was the second child and only son of Philip, Duke of Parma and Princess Louise-Élisabeth of France, eldest daughter of Louis XV of France and Maria Leszczyńska...

 (1751 - 1802) and his Habsburg Duchess, Archduchess Marie Amalie of Austria, an alliance that had been organised by her mother, Maria Theresa

Maria Theresa of Austria

Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...

, Tillot was soon cashiered, in spite of protests from France and Spain. He had made deep political enemies in the Church, and the new Duchess effected a shift away from Bourbon influences towards conservative Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, though his replacement, Jose de Llano, was Spanish. Tillot was confined under house arrest

House arrest

In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...

 to his properties at Colorno

Colorno

Colorno is a comune in the Province of Parma in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about 90 km northwest of Bologna and about 15 km north of Parma...

. He fled on 19 November 1771, intending to reach Spain, but ended his days in retirement in France, where he died in 1774.

The classic biography is U. Benassi, Guglielmo du Tillot: Un ministro riformatore del secolo XVIII (Parma, 1915).