Palazzo Bonaparte

Piazza Venezia marks the physical center of Rome as well as being a square buzzing with activity and history. On the north end, where Piazza Venezia meets Via del Corso, is the building where Napoleon I’s mother Letizia Ramolino Bonaparte lived: Palazzo Bonaparte. The building was built in 1660 by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi for Marquis Giuseppe Benedetto.  After Napoleon was forced in to exile, Letizia was granted asylum in Rome by Pope Pius VII in 1815. It is said she loved to sit on the covered balcony, hidden from view, and watch the city unfold below her. Once she lost her sight her lady in waiting described the comings and goings to her. Letizia lived at Palazzo Bonaparte until her death in 1836. The building became the property of Italian insurance company Assitalia in 1972, but the name Bonaparte remains on the rooftop

François Gérard : "Marie-Laetitia Bonaparte" (vers 1804)  

La maison natale de Napoléon Bonaparte

linternaute/maison-bonaparte

 

 

La maison natale de Napoléon Bonaparte donne au visiteur l'occasion d'admirer le mobilier familial datant de la fin du XVIIIe siècle, ainsi que des souvenirs, des armes, des portraits, mais également des documents relatifs à Napoléon et à ses parents, en Corse.

La famille Bonaparte arrive dans cette maison à la fin du XVIIe siècle, et devient, pièce après pièce, propriétaire de l'ensemble du bâtiment. Elle entreprend alors d'importants travaux. Six des frères et sœurs de Napoléon sont également nés ici. Le prince Victor, héritier de l'impératrice Eugénie, fait don de cette maison à l'Etat. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15 in Ajaccio, Corsica, the second oldest of 8 siblings. His birth occurred just 3 months after the French took over Corsica. As a child, he hated France. His father, Carlo, on the other hand, was a poor French aristocrat. Napoleon didn’t like his father for taking the French side instead of the Corsican side. Letzig, his mother was very strict. She taught the kids sacrifice and discipline. Sometimes Napoleon had to go to bed without supper. Carlo worked very hard so Napoleon could go to the private academy, Brienne, in 1778 which was located in France.  He was very good at math and science. Then he went to a military school in France. 

Ajaccio’s cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and built in 1593, is steps from the Bonaparte house.   

 

 

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Act of Baptism. Archives of Ajaccio (Photos Tomasio) 

 

 

In Corsica, the most famous house is the Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio where Napoleon was born on August 15, 1769.  According to tradition, his mother, Letizia Ramolino was praying in the nearby cathedral when she felt severe labor pains.  She hurried home, only making it to a first floor parlor where she gave birth to her second son, named Napoleon after an uncle who had died in the Corsican struggle for independence.  
maison-bonaparte-napoleons-birthplace/