Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

Napoleon’s Italian Coronation 

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[NAPOLEON]. DOCUMENTI OFFICIALI relative all’incoronazione di Napoleone Bonaparte primo imperatore de’ francesi e re d’Italia. Milano:, MDCCCV [1805]. £1,150

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FIRST EDITION. Three volumes, 8vo, pp. 93, [1] blank; 115, [1] blank; 118, with engraved frontispiece and one engraved plate before title-page of volume three; aside from very occasional spotting, and a paper flaw touching a couple of letters on pp.61-2 of volume 2, clean and fresh throughout; uncut in contemporary pink wrappers, printed paper labels on spines of volumes two and three; a lovely copy.

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A superb copy in near-original condition of this Italian account of the coronation of Napoleon as King of Italy on May 26, 1805.

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A programme for the coronation had already been printed in Paris, prepared by Ségur, Napoleon’s master of ceremonies (Programme de la cérémonie du couronnement de S. M. l’empereur Napoléon, roi d’Italie), but that was immediately rendered obsolete by the postponement of the event, which had been originally scheduled for three days previously. This Milan collection, on the other hand, gives an up-to-date account of the actual happenings, although it is worth bearing in mind that it is an official account, which may overstate the enthusiasm with which Napoleon was welcomed. 

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The initial plan, of course, had been for Napoleon’s brother Joseph to become King of Italy, to give at least the appearance of avoiding consolidating Napoleon’s power, but agreement on the mechanics of this could not be reached. Napoleon then took it upon himself to unite the crowns of France and Italy; the latter was a novelty entirely of his own making, but great efforts were made, in ceremony and iconography, both to connect the new Kingdom of Italy to the distinguished history of the peninsula, going back to the Romans and beyond, and to emphasise, in rhetoric if not in reality, the independence of the new Kingdom from France, while still emphasising the necessity of the consolidation of the crowns. Over the three volumes, we are presented not only with the documents in which Napoleon’s coronation is negotiated and justified, both to the French and to the Italians, but also the details of the ceremony, emphasising the role of the Church, which Napoleon saw as essential to his success in Italy, and, subsequently, the initial meetings of the legislative assembly and the new constitutional arrangements of the Kingdom. 

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For more context, see A.A. Caiani, ‘Ornamentalism in a European Context? Napoleon’s Italian Coronation, 26 May 1805’, The English Historical Review, Vol 32, no. 554 (2017), 41-72; outwith Italy, OCLC records copies at Johns Hopkins, Duke, the BL, and the BnF, with the first two volumes also at Michigan. 

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