Name Letizia Ramolino | Siblings Joseph Fesch | |
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Issue Joseph, King of SpainNapoleon I, Emperor of the FrenchLucien, 1st Prince of Canino and MusignanoElisa, Grand Duchess of TuscanyLouis I, King of HollandPauline, Princess and Duchess of GuastallaCaroline, Queen of NaplesJerome, King of Westphalia Father Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino Mother Angela Maria Pietrasanta Children Napoleon, Joseph Bonaparte, Lucien Bonaparte Parents Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino, Nobile Angela Maria Pietrasanta Similar People | ||
Nobile Maria Letizia Buonaparte née Ramolino (Marie-Lætitia Ramolino, Madame Mère de l'Empereur) (24 August 1750 – 2 February 1836) was an Italian noble, mother of Napoleon I of France.
Life
She was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, Republic of Genoa, the daughter of Nobile Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino (13 April 1723 – 1755), Captain of Corsican Regiments of Chivalry and Infantry in the Army of the Republic of Genoa, and his wife Nobile Angela Maria Pietrasanta (circa 1725–1790). The distant cousins of the Ramolinos were a low rank of nobility in the Republic of Genoa. Like most such girls in the 18th century, Letizia was educated at home. After the death of her father, her mother remarried the Swiss-born naval officer Franz Fesch, a captain in the service of the Republic of Genoa stationed on Corsica, and gave birth to two children, among them her half-brother Joseph Fesch.
On 2/7 June 1764, when she was thirteen, Letizia married the trainee attorney Carlo Buonaparte, himself only seventeen, at Ajaccio. First pregnant a few months later, she went on to give birth to thirteen children, eight of whom survived infancy, and most of whom were created monarchs by Napoleon:
Letizia and her husband Carlo befriended with the island's governor, Mr de Marbeuf and the intendant, Bertrand de Boucheporn whose wife was the godmother of their son Louis (1778), the future king of Holland. These friendships might have helped to have Napoleon admitted to the Brienne cadet school (1779).
She was a harsh mother, and had a very down-to-earth view of most things. When most European mothers bathed children perhaps once a month, she had her children bathed every other day.
Letizia spoke Italian and Corsican, and never learned French. In 1785, when she was 35, her husband died of cancer. She was decreed "Madam, the Mother of His Imperial Majesty The Emperor" (Madame Mère de l'Empereur), Imperial Highness, on 18 May 1804 or 23 March 1805. Napoleon paid her 25,000 francs a month. In 1814 she shared Napoleon's exile in Elba, where he treated her fondly. After 1815 she moved to Rome, in Palazzo D'Aste-Bonaparte in piazza Venezia, where she lived out her days with her younger brother Joseph Fesch. She died of old age in 1836, aged 85, three weeks before the 51st anniversary of her husband's death. By then she was nearly blind and had outlived her most famous son Napoleon by 15 years. During her years in Rome, she rarely saw any other family members than her brother, who rarely left her. For a time the painter Anna Barbara Bansi served as her companion.