Profile - The Early Military History of the Bonapartes

When “Bonaparte” is heard one quite naturally thinks of soldiers, armies, and war. Yet warriors were actually quite rare in the Bonaparte – or more correctly the Buonaparte – family until the eighteenth century.

The earliest documentable ancestor of the Buonapartes was one Gianfaldo, born sometime in the thirteenth century, who was enrolled as a "nobile" at Sarzana, a town near Genoa; this actually looks more impressive than it really was, for in Italian nobile ranks something rather like the British “Lord of the Manor.” Gianfaldo appears to have been a notary, in Latin countries something between an American paralegal and a British solicitor, and thus has considerably more status than a notary in the modern U.S. He seems to have prospered, and he married well, wedding one Imelda de Nerli, the daughter of Ugolino de Nerli, who ranked as a "Patrician" in the nobility of Florence, a slightly higher distinction than nobile, rather like a “baronet” in English usage, though, and this would have been quite important, the title was conferred by town a much more distinguished than Sarzana.  Their son, Guglielmo ("William"), also became a notary, in Florence, where he died early in the fourteenth century. He seems to have prospered, and is the first member of the family to bear the name “Buonaparte – Good Fortune,” possibly implying considerable success at business.

Guglielmo's descendants continued in the notary business for several generations. Although as gentlemen they would have been required to bear arms, none of them particularly distinguished himself as a soldier until Guglielmo's four-times great-grandson, Francesco Buonaparte, nicknamed “Il Mauro – the Moor,” probably because he had a dark complexion. Perhaps bored with the notion of living out his life with ink-stained fingers, Francesco broke the mold. He eschewed the law and become a professional soldier, a mounted crossbowman in Genovese service.  In 1490 he was transferred to Corsica, then owned by Genoa, where his father Giovanni was serving as an intendant—fiscal officer—to the Governor General of Bastia.  Francesco seems to have liked Corsica, because he eventually settled there, though military service took him elsewhere for long periods.  He died sometime after 1540. 

Francesco's great-grandson, also Francesco, was born about 1570 in Ajaccio, the principal city of Corsica.  Also a notary, he served for some time as Chancellor to the Lord of Istria, in northeastern Italy.  He seems to have done some soldiering, too, for in 1620 he was appointed colonel of a Corsican regiment in Genovese service.  Francesco died at Ajaccio in 1633.  Despite his apparent success as a soldier, Francesco’s sons preferred the life of notaries and lawyers, perhaps because the profits were better and risks less.  But the soldiering gene reappeared in his great-great-great-grandson, named Napoleone, though not the famous one.

This particular Napoleone Buonaparte (1717-1767), started out by following the family tradition, becoming an attorney. He became prominent in municipal affairs at Ajaccio, and was also active in the militia.  Now in 1755 the people of Corsica declared themselves free of Genovese domination, and elected Pasquale Paoli their president. The Genovese, weak and impoverished, could do nothing about this, so the Corsican Republic thrived for a time. But in 1764 Genoa secretly sold Corsica to France. Since the French had just lost the Seven Years’ War, during which the Corsicans had sided with the British, they preferred to keep the deal secret until they had recovered their strength. Now that same year, 1764 Napoleone was named Commandant of garrison at Ajaccio, a regiment composed largely of native Corsicans. On August 17, 1769, Napoleone was killed in action at the Battle of Ponte Nuovo fighting against the French and their partisans. 

Perhaps for personal or political reasons, or perhaps because in times of crisis noble families have often been known to divide their loyalties, so that, whichever side won, the family would survive, Col. Buonaparte’s nephew Carolo Maria Buonaparte (1746-1785), also a prominent political leader and lawyer, supported the French take-over of Corsica in 1769, for which he was well rewarded.  He married Letizia Ramolino (1750-1836), the daughter of Captain Giovanni Gerolamo Ramolino, an officer in the Corsican regiments of the Republic of Genoa. 

Carlo Maria and Letizia named their first son Napoleone, but he died quite young. So they tried again, and their fourth child – the third son, and only the second to survive childhood – was also named Napoleone.

In 1790, this younger Napoleone, then 21, visited the field of Ponte Nuova, to see a real battlefield and contemplate the Rive Golo, which reportedly had turned “blood-red for a distance of twenty-four miles to the sea, and carried corpses along with it” as a result of the slaughter.

This Napoleone is the famous one.