A belated happy birthday to Napoleon Bonaparte who was born 246 years ago, on August 15, 1769, in this house on the island of Corsica. That lightly-populated island’s strategic position in the Mediterranean led to its repeated conquest and colonization, starting with the Phoenicians in 565 BCE. Over the next two millennia, Romans, Vandals, Ostrogoths, …
On June 18, 2015, people around the world who either admire or despise Napoleon Bonaparte will pause to remember his greatest loss, the Battle of Waterloo. Two hundred years later, endless arguments continue. Did the French Marshal Ney betray Napoleon? Or was it Napoleon’s reluctance to send Ney reinforcements that caused the loss? Why didn’t …
200th Anniversary of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Loss at Waterloo Read More »
War Games, by Donna Lomangino, available at www.lomanginoart.com My brother Jimmy and my sister-in-law Helen gave me this fun portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte playing video games. That someone would even think to paint it reminds me how much Napoleon remains a part of our collective memory.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a brilliant military and political leader, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t make disastrous mistakes. In that regard, the Russian Campaign of 1812 deserves top billing. His misadventures in Spain, poignantly illustrated in this painting from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, come in a close second. I won’t …
Finding Napoleon in Richmond, Virginia (and Spain) Read More »
During my travels to do research on Napoleon Bonaparte, I’ve taken hundreds of photographs of Napoleonic sites, art, memorabilia, and related objects. I’ve learned a lot about about military campaigns, geopolitics, and daily life in his times. I’ve become fascinated (and distracted by) the countless characters who surrounded Napoleon, from his birth in Corsica through …
In St Helena, Admiral Cockburn implemented the British policy of denying Napoleon his imperial title. Henceforth, he insisted, the former emperor was to be addressed as “General.” More than that, in a effort to delegitimize his right to lead the French, the British used the Corsican spelling of his name so “Bonaparte” reverted to the Italian-sounding “Buonaparte.”
Part 1: Napoleon Bonaparte at Wellington’s House When I traveled to London earlier this month, it wasn’t difficult to find traces of Napoleon Bonaparte. After all, he was arguably the British Empire’s greatest foe until the World Wars of the twentieth century. What I found is that, at least in some quarters, Napoleon was …
As schools begin their fall sessions, Napoleon Bonaparte’s educational experience comes to mind. At nine years old, little Nabulio Buonaparte traveled a thousand kilometers from Ajaccio, Corsica, the only home he’d known, to a military school in Brienne, France. Along the way, he spent four months in Autun, France, long enough for the Italian-speaking child …
If you are reading this blog, you probably know that Napoleon Bonaparte spent his last six years in exile on St Helena Island in the remote south Atlantic Ocean. I visited the island in 2011 and I’m always interested in learning more about its fascinating connection to Napoleon. I owe this blog post to one …
I’m on vacation in Iceland for a dozen days, but even there I’ve been on the look-out for references to Napoleon Bonaparte. I had begun to despair of finding any when I came across this sympathetic puffin. He obligingly posed in the exiled Emperor Napoleon’s iconic posture, hands clasped behind his back, staring out from …
