Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio

Ajaccio, Maison Bonaparte in a period engraving

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The Bonaparte settled in the part of the house in Ajaccio that would bear their name at the end of the seventeenth century. Little by little, through long negotiations and a few strategic marriages, they acquired the entire building, expanding it and making it one of the most important in the area.
Carlo Maria Buonaparte, Napoleon’s father, embellished the residence, adding a terrace and restructuring the interior. At Carlo Maria’s premature death, his brother, the archdeacon Lucien, looked after the family holdings, which would be increased with the purchase of the agricultural property of the Milelli, a few kilometres from Ajaccio. With the events resulting from the outbreak of the Revolution, the Bonaparte family was constrained to leave Ajaccio, where they would not return until 1796. At that time, Joseph, Napoleon’s older brother, retook possession of the family home, also purchasing the apartment on the third floor and hiring the Swiss architect Samuel–Etienne Meuron to renovate the building. When Letizia joined the family in Paris in 1799, the house, entirely renovated, was entrusted to Napoleon’s wet nurse, Camille Ilari.
After various changes of hand among the heirs of the Bonaparte family, in 1852 the house came into the possession of Napoleon III who hired the architect Alexis Piccard and the painter Jérôme Maglioli for the renovation, at the same time attempting to recover the original furnishings, by now dispersed.
The Maison Bonaparte was ceded to the French State in 1923 and in 1967 the relative national museum was instituted.