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Do the Italians recognize Napoleon Bonaparte and the Bonaparte as their own?

Napoleon and his family were Corsican, in fact his mother's family came from Genoa. I know that the French see him as their own, but do the Italians? Politically yes, Corsica was French, but it is Italian from antiquity. Napoleon didn't even know how to speak French until he went to middle school in mainland France and even then he struggled and his classmates jeered at his Italian accent.

Public Comments

  1. Part of his family came from Italy, but Napoleon was born in Corsica after Corsica had become French. The Italians make no claim on Napoleon's nationality. Regardless of birth, he grew up in French culture, studied in French schools, and, of course, became emperor there.
  2. No. Napoleon was born right after France annexed Corsica from Italy. Napoleon was a tyrant in everyone's mind but the French. The Italians wanted nothing to do with him, even though his mother's family was from Genoa and his given name was Italian - he dropped an "e" on his first name and Francified his last name from the Italian spelling to make him acceptable to the French.
  3. They do not and I agree with both answers above me. I would add that Napoleon would later on play a major role in Italian politics by invading and occupying much of the Peninsula. One could make a claim that the Italian state (as we know it now) started by Napoleon's invasions and the restructuring of polities that it brought about (centralization and unification).
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