Refugee capital compared: Zurich, Geneva and the Huguenot diaspora

Two refuges

Swiss historiography distinguishes two great waves of Protestant refugees in the early modern period. The first followed the Reformation and culminated after the massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572. It brought Italians from Lucca, Genoa, Cremona and Milan, who fled the Roman Inquisition re-established in 1542, French Protestants, English exiles under Mary Tudor and the Reformed communities of Locarno and the Valtellina. The second, the "great Refuge", followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes on 18 October 1685.¹ The Locarnese of 1555 belong to the first Refuge. Their experience in Zurich can be compared with that of the Italian and French refugees in Geneva, which the Geneva volume treats in detail, and with the Huguenots of the second Refuge in Zurich and elsewhere.

Geneva: refuge as the making of a city

The reception of refugees in Geneva differed from that in Zurich in scale and in its political consequences. Under Calvin's leadership, and despite internal opposition, Geneva granted residence to almost 8,000 refugees between 1549 and 1587. Some 3,000 settled permanently and formed about 30 per cent of the city's population. Several families from Lucca, among them the Burlamacchi, Diodati, Micheli and Calandrini, took root in the city, while dozens of Huguenot printers made Geneva a centre for the printing of Bibles and psalters.² French-speaking Switzerland was receptive to refugees partly because several branches of the textile industry there were not subject to guild regulation, and because the Reformed churches needed French-speaking ministers.

In Zurich, by contrast, the authorities initially welcomed the refugees from the Valtellina, the Grisons and Locarno, but the politically powerful guilds soon opposed them because they feared competition in textiles. Basel showed similar resistance, and the few refugee families admitted to its citizenship, such as the Bernoulli, Legrand and Sarasin, developed complementary activities in silk and long-distance trade, as did the Orelli in Zurich.³ The comparison shows that institutional structure mattered more than religious solidarity. Where guilds controlled the economy and the political order, as in Zurich and Basel, refugees were confined to niches and had to wait generations for full rights. Where the economy was less regulated and the refugees came in sufficient numbers to transform the political balance, as in Geneva, they could reshape the city itself.

Feature Zurich (Locarnese, from 1555) Geneva (first Refuge, 1549–1587) Number About 100 from Locarno Almost 8,000 admitted, about 3,000 settled Share of Small minority About 30 per cent population Guild Strong; restrictions on trades Weaker in textiles regulation Citizenship Orelli: full rights 1679 Turrettini: citizenship 1627 example Lasting Silk trade, Lombard links, Silk, printing, banking, contribution banking families theology

Table: The Locarnese in Zurich and the first Refuge in Geneva compared (sources in the footnotes to this section).

Notes

1. Tosato-Rigo, "Réfugiés protestants" (above). ↩
2. Tosato-Rigo, "Réfugiés protestants" (above). See also Liliane Mottu-Weber, Economie et Refuge à Genève au siècle de la Réforme (Genève 1987), cited there, and the Geneva volume, Part B. ↩
3. Tosato-Rigo, "Réfugiés protestants" (above), section "Le premier Refuge". ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.