The Bonapartes… at school with the Jesuits
Among the alumni of the Colleges of the Society of Jesus, whom one would hardly expect to find, there are also some members of the Bonaparte family, a presence that leaves one astonished even in those who do not know the history in depth.
Napoleon Bonaparte, supporter of the ideals of the French Revolution and anticlerical, was the author on many occasions of expropriations of movable and immovable property to the detriment of the Church: famous is the decision to transfer the Vatican Secret Archives to Paris and the dispersions that the patrimony suffered, especially on the return journey. In 1797, on the other hand, Napoleon’s troops, settling in the Holy House of Loreto and in the premises of the Collegio degli Illirici, which had belonged to the Compagnia di Gesù, in the meantime suppressed, had caused several damages to the furnishings.
Yet his brother Lucien, to whom historiography recognises a much closer relationship – compared to Napoleon – with the faith and more complex with the Papal State, enrolled his sons in the College of Urbino of the Society of Jesus.
A register, preserved in the archives, records the names of the brothers and their stay at the school:
Paul: Prince of Rome, born on 19th February 1809, son of Prince Lucien Bonaparte of Corsica and Princess Alexandrina Bheschamp of Calais, entered boarding school on 31st January 1824 and left on 20th June 1825.
Louis: Prince of Rome, entered April 17th 1824, left September 11th 1825.
Antonio: Prince of Rome, entered April 17, 1824, left November 11, 1825.
Pietro: Prince of Rome, entered 17 April 1824, left 11 November 1825.
The documentation kept for the College of Urbino also allows us to know the rules the boarders observed at the time the Bonaparte brothers were enrolled.
From our documentation we know that Napoleon’s nephews were enrolled for a year or so, at a time when their famous uncle’s star had waned, Napoleon had in fact already died when the nephews entered the College.
Maria Macchi
