Elisa Bonaparte (3 January 1777-7 August 1820) was Grand Duchess of Tuscany from 3 March 1809 to 1 February 1814, succeeding Charles II and preceding Ferdinand III.
Biography[]
Maria Anna Elisa Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, France in 1777, a daughter of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino. Her family moved to Toulon in 1793 and Marseille in 1795, and she married the Corsican nobleman Felice Pasquale Baciocchi in 1797. She and her brother Lucien Bonaparte held an artistic and literary salon at Paris' Hotel de Brissac, and she became an Imperial Princess in 1804, while her husband became a brigadier-general and senator. She was separated from her husband in 1805 and was made Princess of Lucca and Piombino in March 1805. Elisa surrounded herself with a stable cabinet of ministers, and she set up a court and court etiquette inspired by those at the Tuileries Palace; the commoners had little sympathy for her or her attempts to Frenchify the former Republic of Lucca. In 1809, she became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, ruling from Florence, but her brother Napoleon strictly controlled all affairs of state there. Elisa was coldly received by the nobility, and she attempted to nationalize the goods of the clergy, patronized arts and science, and reluctantly helped Napoleon depose Pope Pius VII. In 1810, she fell out with her brother over his unfair requisitions of her duchy's resources. In February 1814, she was forced to abandon her throne as the Coalition overwhelmed the French Empire, and an Austro-British force captured Lucca in March as Joachim Murat's Neapolitans captured Massa and Carrara. Elisa was arrested on 25 March 1814 and imprisoned in Brunn until August, when she was allowed to stay in Trieste with the title of Countess of Compignano. She died in 1820 after contracting an illness at an archaeological excavation site she had funded.