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Origin and history

The Musée de la Maison Bonaparte is housed in the house where Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 and spent his childhood. Originally, this house was the Casa Bozzi, owned by one of the most influential feudal families in Corsica. It was gradually acquired by the Buonaparte from 1682, when Giuseppe Buonaparte married Maria Bozzi, receiving half of the house in dowry. Subsequent generations consolidated this property with purchases, marriages and inheritances, notably under the leadership of Carlo Maria Buonaparte, Napoleon's father, and his uncle, the archdeacon Luciano Buonaparte.

The house was profoundly transformed after 1796, when Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's older brother, undertook restoration and expansion work. A gallery was added in 1797, becoming the most beautiful reception hall of Ajaccio, while Letizia Buonaparte, Napoleon's mother, installed a Management Room. The house was then entrusted to relatives, such as the nurse Camilla Illari, and then given in 1805 to André Ramolino on condition that a place be arranged in front of the house. After estate disputes, she eventually returned to the imperial family.

Under the Second Empire, Napoleon III ordered the complete restoration of the building between 1857 and 1860, supervised by architect Alexis Paccard. The interior decorations, made by Jérôme Maglioli, were preserved, and the family furniture bought from the heirs Lévie-Ramolino. Ranked a historic monument in 1924, the house was given to the State by Prince Victor Napoleon in 1923. It became a national museum in 1967, attached to Malmaison, and was enriched in 2004 by new exhibition rooms in the adjacent Couraut house. A restoration of the painted decorations finished in 2016.

Today, the museum evokes both the history of the Bonaparte family in Corsica and the local heritage of the eighteenth century. The collections include Italian furniture, Napoleon's personal objects, and architectural elements reflecting the successive transformations of the house. The site remains a symbolic place, celebrating the memory of the emperor while illustrating the social and political history of Corsica in the modern era.

The museum's attendance is based on its status as a Napoleonic place of memory, attracting visitors interested in Napoleon's childhood and Corsican history. Temporary exhibitions, such as those organized for the bicentenary of his death in 2021, reinforce his cultural influence. The house, protected as historical monuments, constitutes a must-see heritage of Ajaccio and Corsica.

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