Napoleonic Museum, History museum in Rome, Italy
The Napoleonic Museum is a history and art museum housed in Palazzo Primoli, on Piazza di Ponte Umberto I in central Rome, displaying paintings, sculptures, furniture, and personal objects connected to the Bonaparte family. The collection covers the family across several generations and traces their presence in both France and Italy.
Count Giuseppe Primoli started gathering these objects while living at the court of Napoleon III in Paris, then brought them to Rome when he moved there in the second half of the 19th century. The Palazzo Primoli was later renovated to house the growing collection, which eventually opened to the public as a museum.
The museum's name comes from its subject, not from Palazzo Primoli: it holds the collection Giuseppe Primoli, son of Carlotta Bonaparte, gave to Rome in 1927. In rooms III and V, friezes combine the Primoli rearing lion with the Bonaparte eagle, carved after Pietro Primoli married Carlotta Bonaparte in 1848.
The museum occupies the ground floor of Palazzo Primoli, the family palace donated to Rome in 1927, at Piazza di Ponte Umberto I near Ponte Umberto I. The rooms follow Giuseppe Primoli's own arrangement, so visitors pass through the three sections in sequence. The Mario Praz Museum, a branch of the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, is housed on the building's third floor.
Among the personal objects in the collection is a snuffbox that Napoleon found on his desk when he returned from exile on the island of Elba. This small item is one of the few objects in European museums that can be directly linked to the moment of his return to power.
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