Cisalpine Republic

The Cisalpine Republic was the French sister republic of northern Italy, decreed by Napoleon on 29 June 1797 from the Transpadane and Cispadane states he had organized after Lodi. Milan became the capital of eleven departments, a Directory with two councils and six ministers governed on the French model under first president Serbelloni, Cispadania merged in on 27 July and Valtelline joined in October, and Brune's attempted coup failed. and Campoformio forced Austria to recognize the new tricolor state. The War of the Second Coalition broke it: Suvorov's Russians and Austrians occupied Milan after Cassano in April 1799 and ruled through an imperial commission until Marengo in June 1800 brought the French back. Restored in shrunken second form, the republic lived barely eighteen months more: in January 1802 the Consulta at Lyon renamed it the Italian Republic, with Bonaparte president and Melzi vice-president, and the Cisalpine name passed into history.