The Caesar of Paris: Napoleon Bonaparte, Rome, and the Artistic Obsession that Shaped an Empire

by Susan Jaques

Overview

A monumental cultural history of Napoleon Bonaparte’s fascination with antiquity and how it shaped Paris’ artistic landscape.

Napoleon is one of history’s most fascinating figures. But his complex relationship with Rome—both with antiquity and his contemporary conflicts with the Pope and Holy See—have undergone little examination.

In The Caesar of Paris, Susan Jaques reveals how Napoleon’s dueling fascination and rivalry informed his effort to turn Paris into “the new Rome”— Europe’s cultural capital—through architectural and artistic commissions around the city. His initiatives and his aggressive pursuit of antiquities and classical treasures from Italy gave Paris much of the classical beauty we know and adore today.

Napoleon had a tradition of appropriating from past military greats to legitimize his regime—Alexander the Great during his invasion of Egypt, Charlemagne during his coronation as emperor, even Frederick the Great when he occupied Berlin. But it was ancient Rome and the Caesars that held the most artistic and political influence and would remain his lodestars. Whether it was the Arc de Triopmhe, the Venus de Medici in the Louvre, or the gorgeous works of Antonio Canova, Susan Jaques brings Napoleon to life as never before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681778693
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	12/04/2018
Pages:	624
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.10(d)

About the Author

Susan Jaques is a journalist specializing in art. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA. She is the author of A Love for the Beautiful: Discovering America's Hidden Art Museums and lives in Los Angeles, California, where she's a gallery docent at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Part 1 Directory 1

1 Triumphus 3

2 The Land of the Nile 22

3 Pontifex Maximus 38

Part 2 Consulate 53

1 The Etruscans 55

2 Caesar's Friend 70

3 Napoleon's Eye 85

4 Parish 100

Part 3 Imperium 117

1 Carolus Magnus 119

2 Charlemagne's Honors 133

3 The Sacre 145

4 King of Italy 162

Part 4 A New Rome 177

1 Columns of Conquest 179

2 Arches of Triumph 192

3 Temple to the Grande Armée 207

4 Coining an Empire 222

Part 5 Principate 235

1 Curia Regis 237

2 A Family of Kings 253

3 Venus Victrix 267

4 Carrara 280

Part 6 Capital of the Universe 295

1 Abduction 297

2 Trophy Wife 313

3 Breakfast with Napoleon 331

Part 7 Dynasty 349

1 The Eaglet 351

2 In Memorium 366

3 Mars the Peacemaker 380

Part 8 The Fall 393

1 The Golden Prison 395

2 Retrenchment 407

3 Funeral of the Empire 419

Part 9 Legacy 431

1 A Moral Lesson 433

2 Exiles and Heroes 446

3 Res Gestae 464

Postscript 479

Bibliography 481

Endnotes 507

Acknowledgments 553

Illustration Credits 555

Index 559

Editorial Reviews

12/10/2018

In this excellent history, journalist and art historian Jacques (The Empress of Art: Catherine the Great and the Transformation of Russia) traces the cultural elements of the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose imperial style in everything from national rituals to coinage was largely modeled after that of ancient Rome. Jacques focuses on architecture, monuments, and the graphic and decorative arts, but also looks at political rituals, military organization, and holidays. (She notes that Napoleon’s birthday, like that of the Roman emperor Augustus, was celebrated as a national feast day.) Jacques explores other political and cultural influences on Napoleon, including Alexander the Great, who inspired him to invade Egypt. She also looks at some of the artists and sculptors who worked for Napoleon, particularly Antonio Canova, who accepted some major and lucrative Napoleonic commissions, including one that depicted him in the guise of Mars not as warrior but as peacemaker. She also recounts his looting of about 300 works of art from the Belvedere Museum in Vienna. Jacques’s rich work of scholarship will delight lovers of art and Napoleon aficionados, as it sheds much new light on a previously underexplored dimension of the French emperor. Illus. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"The Caesar of Paris by Susan Jaques is a fascinating cultural history of Napoleon’s relationship with antiquity—and how it shaped Paris’s artistic landscape."

Andrew Roberts

"Susan Jaques sweeps through the artistic history of Napoleonic Europe with the verve, enthusiasm, and exuberance the subject deserves. She brings to it her deep erudition, together with the sense of wonder—sometimes awe-struck, sometimes appalled—that Napoleon’s vast, often vainglorious cultural ambitions require. Jaques adds to this a profound grasp of the Roman influences on the age. Simply stirring."

Michael Broers

An absorbing account of a fascinating figure and her legacy.

Booklist (Praise for The Empress of Art)

2018-10-14

Voluminous chronicle of Napoleon's fanaticism about Roman antiquity and an ample catalog of his empire's acquisitions.

A journalist specializing in art and docent at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Jaques (The Empress of Art: Catherine the Great and the Transformation of Russia, 2016, etc.) evidently has the eye and relish for the objet d'art, as she gives exhaustive treatment to Napoleon's studied appropriation of Roman imperial ritual, style, and trappings. His mythomania compelled him to dizzying heights of cultural plunder and enrichment. His conquering model was, of course, Caesar (and before him, Alexander the Great), whose triumphal processions through Rome bearing priceless booty from vanquished lands Napoleon re-enacted through the festooned streets of Paris once he consolidated power. Masterpieces seized during the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, unceremoniously ripped from temples, galleries, and altars, were relocated to Paris and displayed ceremonially for public "morale and patriotism," since France alone was the civilized heir to the ancient civilizations. Jaques moves chronologically over 15 years, from Napoleon's Consulate to Imperium and attempted dynasty, to record the systematic construction of his "New Rome" in Paris. He employed the work of artist Vivant Denon and designers Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, among others, to set the neoclassical tone at his court and palaces like Malmaison and Saint-Cloud. As Jaques amply shows, the empire's style was defined by Greek and Roman motifs in furniture, medallions, and jewelry; short hairstyles; and modest gowns in expensive French textiles. Meanwhile, Italian sculptor Antonio Canova created canonical neoclassical works like Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker. Framed by the historical context, the author's accretion of detail both impresses and becomes tiresome, spilling over into grand schemes of architecture like the Arc de Triomphe and Madeleine Church, Hadrian columns and Egyptian obelisks, and aqueduct systems modeled on Rome.

A massively ambitious compilation of history and stuff that will appeal to students of Napoleon and art history buffs but overwhelm general readers.

Kirkus Reviews

12/01/2018

An ambitious and egotistical emperor with a quest for military victory and dynastic legitimacy, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) remade the European political and cultural map during his time in power, seeking to place himself in history through military victory and cultural acquisition alongside the likes of Pericles, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Charlemagne. Surrounded by the spoils of war that included the finest sculpture from antiquity, painting, jewelry, medals and coins, and other luxury goods, Napoleon understood and manipulated the function of art and architecture as both tribute and propaganda. As art historian and journalist Jaques (The Empress of Art) effectively illustrates in this well-researched biographical history that is also a chronology of his art acquisitions, Napoleon's passion for monuments and other visible symbols of grandeur was equal only to his passion for warfare. The author's style is an appealing combination of technical details and historical gossip that draws on relevant primary and secondary sources. VERDICT While collection facts and figures occasionally stray from the narrative, overall this substantial work is an enjoyable read for French and art history buffs alike.—Linda Frederiksen, Washington State Univ. Lib., Vancouver

Library Journal