Napoleon (the emperor of France, not our dear cat who died last year on December 17th), is a figure who is regarded positively by most Lucchesi. His sister, Elisa, was appointed Princess of Lucca (indeed the first paragraph of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ directly refers to this fact) and in this role assuredly put the city back on the world map. Elisa held a magnificent court and ordered many urban and social projects for the benefit of her principality. For example, the ‘Piazza Grande’, also known as Piazza Napoleone and where the city’s summer festival is held, is due to Elisa (although two ancient churches and many houses were demolished to create the square).

Other projects include the beautifully restrained neo-classical Porta Elisa and the beginning of an arcaded street which would have connected the gate to piazza Napoleone.

The Luccan respect towards and interest in the Corsican is reflected to this day in the conferences and events held by the Fondazione Ragghianti in its attractive headquarters in the ex-Clarissan nuns’ convent near Porta Elisa. I have been to several of these and found them always full of interest. (See, for example, my post at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/200-years-after-waterloo-napoleon-return/).

Napoleon is, however, held in the opposite regard by the inhabitants of ‘La Serenissima’, the honorific title given to the former Venetian Republic. Bonaparte, then not yet emperor, destroyed a nation that had a glorious history dating back to the time when a group of refugees found protection from barbarians in a group of marshy islets set in a lagoon and, from these humble beginnings, began to build a trading and cultural country that eventually extended down the Dalmatian coat to Cyprus and, beyond, to the Crimea.

Napoleon has never been forgiven for his action by the inhabitants of the Veneto region. He brought no benefits to them. He put Lucca on the map, but he removed Venice from it.

The end of La Serenissima, the most serene republic of Venice, influences today’s Italian politics. Like Catalonia in the Iberian peninsula, there is a movement for the independence of Veneto: the area has its own distinct language, which is not merely another dialect but has a great literary past. (Just mention Goldoni). As for music, Venice invented not only opera but the concerto – just consider Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’.

Indeed, the present populist government in Italy has its roots with the ‘Lega’ in these parts. There are historical reasons why a nation destroyed by the French, subsequently sold to the Austrians, only joined to Italy after two wars, 1866 and 1915-8, and then just partly, because its Dalmatian territory was given to Yugoslavia, should harbour such resentments.

Such negative feelings, however, were drowned by pride in having fought bravely against Napoleon and winning two battles against the French before the final terrible defeat led to the death knell of ‘La serenissima’ and the scandalous 1797 treaty of Campo formio which formalised the end of the Venetian Republic.

(Napoleon at the time of his Italian Campaigns)

For the fairy-tale palace where the last doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, died see my post at

Where Venice’s last Doge died, where Napoleon stayed and where Sting played

This pride was fully evidenced by the recent meeting we came across quite by chance, while on the former republic’s territory, of the re-formed regiment which had fought so valiantly against the enemy.

Counting a total of 120 soldiers, including some women, the faithfulness of this re-enactment society towards the apparel and equipment of the late eighteenth century was astounding. The details were quite marvellous!

Here are a few of my photos to show you why:

The fall of La Serenissima is surely one of the major tragedies to have hit the ‘bel paese’ of Italy. Such, however, is the inevitability of history from which few people ever learn and from which ever more nations repeat its errors.