Napoleon

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 RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

View of Longwood House, 1819, Attributed to Louis-Joseph Marchand, photo Margaret Rodenberg 2018, original Chateauroux, Musee-Hotel Bertrand

Napoleon: The Imperial Household Exhibit at the VMFA A fabulous exhibit of art and artifacts from Napoleon Bonaparte’s various households has been visiting the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It’s moving on to Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (October 19, 2018 – March 3, 2019) and then to the Chateau de Fontainbleau (April 3,

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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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Finding Napoleon in Portland, Oregon

Margaret Rodenberg at the shooting range, lessons for a writer

I actually was in Oregon because of Napoleon Bonaparte. You see, that’s where the Historical Novel Society held this year’s conference. It’s a historical novelist’s dream: a hotel full of five hundred people, all fascinated with previous eras. It’s a joyous celebration of camaraderie, craft and commerce. It’s a chance for would-be authors to pitch

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Finding a Bonaparte in Panama

Lucien Bonaparte Wyse statue in Plaza de Francia, Panama City, Panama

Whenever I travel, I’m on the lookout for signs of Napoleon Bonaparte’s influence. I didn’t expect to find any on a recent trip to Costa Rica and Panama, but there’s a statue of his great-nephew in Panama City. In 1877, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, the grandson of Emperor Napoleon’s brother Lucien, obtained the first agreement from

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