Napoleonic Italy
Charles Edward Stuart, the Last Pretender (1720-1788)
Charles Edward Stuart, the Last Pretender (1720-1788)
Charles Edward Stuart, the Last Pretender (1720-1788)
Hugh Douglas Hamilton, National Portrait Gallery, London
Click on the picture above
Charles Stuart attempted to recapture the British throne during the Jacobite Rebellion; he and the remainder of the Stuart court went into exile to Rome
Germaine de Stael (1766-1817)
Charles Edward Stuart, the Last Pretender (1720-1788)
Charles Edward Stuart, the Last Pretender (1720-1788)
Portrait of Mme. de Stael as her Heroine by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, 1808 (click on the picture above)
Stael's novel, Corinne, published in 1807, is about a half-Italian, half English heroine and her lover, Oswald, Lord Nevil, set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Invasions of Italy in 1796. Stael was sent into exile from France by Napoleon and her work was censored for veiled unflattering references to Napoleon as a tyrant. See her memoirs, Ten Years of Exile (1821).
Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803)
Charles Edward Stuart, the Last Pretender (1720-1788)
Princess Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emmanuele of Stolberg-Gedern (1752 – 1824)
Portrait painted by Jacques Louis David's pupil François-Xavier Fabre, in Florence 1793.
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Alfieri met Louise Stolberg in Rome when she was married to Charles Stuart. She left Stuart for Alfieri, and the two traveled to Paris where they witnessed the French Revolution.
Alfieri dedicated his tragedies to George Washington and the Future People of Italy. He supported a unified Italy with a constitution.
Princess Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emmanuele of Stolberg-Gedern (1752 – 1824)
Princess Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emmanuele of Stolberg-Gedern (1752 – 1824)
Princess Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emmanuele of Stolberg-Gedern (1752 – 1824)
Portrait of Louise Stolberg by Francois Xavier Fabre (1793) Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Stolberg married Charles Stuart, the Last Pretender to the British throne; she left him for Vittorio Alfieri and the couple moved to the Gianfigliazzi Palazzo in Florence on the Arno River where she held her salon for notable artists and writers. Stolberg's correspondence reveals that she supported the defeat of Napoleon, like her friend Germaine de Stael, and tracked his movements at Elba prior to his escape.
Antonio Canova, Monument to Alfieri, Santa Croce Florence
Princess Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emmanuele of Stolberg-Gedern (1752 – 1824)
Antonio Canova, Monument to Alfieri, Santa Croce Florence
Stolberg edited and published Alfieri's writings posthumously after his death in 1803. She also commissioned a tomb monument for him from Canova for Santa Croce completed in 1810.
Antonio Canova, Pauline Borghese as Venus Victrix, 1808
Princess Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emmanuele of Stolberg-Gedern (1752 – 1824)
Antonio Canova, Monument to Alfieri, Santa Croce Florence
(click on the picture above) Napoleon married his sister Pauline to Prince Camillo Borghese, a descendent of Pope Paul V; Napoleon's sister, Elise, was made the Grand Duchess of Etruria (Tuscany) and his sister, Caroline was made the Queen of Naples.
Important Publications
Germaine de Staël
Corinne, or Italy (1807)
Germaine de Staël traveled to Italy to research her novel, Corinne. She visited Stolberg's salon in Florence and maintained contact between her salon in Coppet, Switzerland and Stolberg's.
Louise Stolberg’s Florentine Salon and Germaine de Staël's Coppet Circle.
The Politics of Patronage, Neoclassicism and the Code of Freedom in Napoleonic Italy
by Sharon Worley
Edwin Mellen Press (2015) ( Click on the picture)
Marie-Guillemine Benoist - Portrait of Elisa Bonaparte, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (1805)
Napoleon made his sister Elisa the Grand Duchess of Etruria with her residence at the Pitti Palace in Florence, his sister Caroline became the Queen of Naples with her husband, Joachim Murat as King, and Pauline married Camillo Borghese, a Roman prince, and lived at the Borghese Villa in Rome, today a museum that houses her famous portrait by Antonio Canova.
Napoleonic Monuments in Milan, Italy
Antonio Canova, Napoleon as Mars, 1811, Piazza Brera, Milan
After Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in 1805 and his coronation as the Emperor of France, his statue was erected in Milan, Italy. The copy destined for the musee Napoleon at the Louvre, Paris, was rejected for its nudity and acquired by the Duke of Wellington after his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815; it is still displayed in Apsley House, London, UK.
Arch of Peace - Arco della Pace, Milan by architect Luigi Cagnola
Designed as a Victory Arch to commemorate Napoleon's victories in Italy, its construction began in 1807 and remained unfinished at the time of Napoleon abdication in 1814 and was renamed to celebrate the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the return of Habsburg rule. When the arch was completed in 1838, it commemorated the coronation of Ferdinand I as king of Lombardy-Veneto.
Abbondio Sangiorgio, Chariot of Peace
The arch was rededicated again in 1859 to commemorate the Unification of Italy and the defeat of Habsburg rule.
Chronology of the Italian Risorgimento
A Timeline
The Italian Risorgimento (literally resurrection) begins with the creation of the Parthenopean Republic in 1799 in Florence. The revolutionary Carbonari, a secret society formed, to help organization revolutions against foreign monarchies in Italy.
The Carbonari
The secret society of the Carbonari was an offshoot of Freemasonry that formed in the late 18th century. The name means charcoal burners and refers to the black charcoal they smeared on their faces during secret rituals.
Napoleon became King of Italy in 1805
Napoleon invaded in Italy as a general in the French Republic in 1796. He established the Kingdom of Italy and joined it to the French Empire in 1805.
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