Museo Napoleonico

FINDING NAPOLEON IN CUBA Part 4

Napoleon's spyglass on St Helena, Museo Napoleónica, photo Luke Dalla Bona

Napoleonic Links from St Helena to Cuba As I posted in June 2011, Napoleon Bonaparte isn’t the only thing interesting about St Helena Island. After all, Napoleon’s exile, which ran from 1815 to 1821, only accounts for a moment in the island’s 500-year history. So this past year, when I wrote an article about links

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FINDING NAPOLEON IN CUBA Part 3

In Cuba’s Museo Napoleónico, my favorite item is Napoleon Bonaparte’s pocket watch (featured in my last post). My second favorite is Jean-Georges Vibert’s painting, Planning for the Coronation. In it, the Consul-for-Life Napoleon Bonaparte is rearranging dolls on a floor plan of Notre Dame Cathedral. If you know Jacques-Louis David’s monumental painting, Le Sacré (The Coronation),

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FINDING NAPOLEON IN CUBA

Who knew one of the world’s great Napoleonic museums is in Cuba? Surprisingly, Havana’s Museo Napoleónico contains the Western Hemisphere’s largest collection of artifacts associated with Napoleon Bonaparte. Thanks to the Napoleonic Historical Society, I got to visit it. The collection belonged to Julio Lobo (1898 – 1983), Cuba’s richest sugar cane magnate. Lobo, who

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