Room VII - The Kingdom of Naples

In these rooms are displayed objects related to Joseph and Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother and sister, who held to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples one after the other. Napoleon gave the throne initially to his older brother, the submissive Joseph, who reigned there from 1806 to 1808. During this period Jean-Baptiste Wicar, then the Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Neapolitan cities, created portraits of Joseph, his wife Giulia Clary and their two children Zenaide e Carlotta.

After Joseph became king of Spain, the throne of Naples passed to Caroline Bonaparte and her husband Gioacchino Murat. Their government was characterized by a wish to distance themselves from the imperial directives and to acquire political autonomy. In 1815, with the fall of the Empire and the restoration of the Boubons, Murat was killed while he was trying to reconquer his territories. Caroline, however, fled to Trieste; it is from this period that the volumes, conserved in the elegant bookcase and personalised by the “La comtesse de Lipona” stamp, a title she took on after the end of the Napoleonic era.
Several of Caroline’s jewels are displayed in the case (others are in the wall cases in Room I). The “sentimental” pieces include the pin with the miniature of Jean-Baptiste Augustin surrounded by a series of hard stones, whose initials form the word souvenir.