Original subtitles

(SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS)

(Jeremy Irons) On 26th May 1805 this square was jam-packed.

(Irons) The bells were ringing out across the city...

..and it would have been difficult to elbow your way through the yelling crowds...

..as they jostled and shoved.

(MUSIC OF "CORONATION" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) Then Napoleon arrived,...

..on a four-poster bed carried aloft by clerics.

(Irons) He entered here, into the Duomo, cathedral of Milan.

(Irons) The Emperor of France now desired to be the King of Italy too.

(MUSIC OF "CORONATION" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

This was the rope...

..worn by Napoleon that day...

Its train was held by General Berthier,...

..one of Napoleon's most trusted and courageous of officers.

(MUSIC OF "CORONATION" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

Among the regalia he brought with him was the sceptre,...

..the symbol of absolute power.

With also something that was one of his favourite,...

..the Hand of Justice which stood for law.

(Irons) He was particularly fond of this:...

..because his Civil Code established the rules for family life,...

..individuals and commerce that shaped French society as we know it today.

(Irons) He was a child of the Revolution...

..and the civil progress it brought about.

So now we were all equal before the law.

But most importantly,...

..the crown worn that day.

Now this is an iron crown that had already graced the heads of the Lombard kings.

(Irons) It is regarded as sacred.

It is said to contain one of the nails from Christ's crucifixion.

After Jesus Christ, Napoleon is the most famous man in history.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

Over 170 thousand books have been written about him.

But how was it that such an unlikely little lad...

..became such a successful and powerful icon,...

..an example for today's statesmen and even corporate managers,...

..a model for future strategists and communicators?

In Corsica, he had been a precocious, lonely and irksome child,...

..short and with a large head,...

..often getting into fights, which he usually lost.

(Irons) As a young soldier in France, his poor command of the language...

..did not endear him to his colleagues.

Even the woman he gave his heart to was unable to return his passion.

Not a recipe for success, you would think.

And yet he succeeded...

..perhaps as much even not more than any man in history.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) And even when it was all over for him:...

..he spent his days in an awesome and uncompromising solitude.

Napoleon: a brilliant military leader,...

..but also a great social organizer and motivator,...

..a man with the vision of national unity.

A creator of dreams nourished on cultural energy and the seductive power of art.

Art that was his passion, that he financed...

..and, lest it be forgotten, looted from the countries he conquered.

(MUSIC OF "JE SUIS NAPOLEON" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) The 26th May 1805 was a Sunday.

Napoleon was just 36 when he stepped inside this cathedral.

The ceremony was a majestic affair.

Original music had been composed for the occasion.

Four orchestras accompanied the coronation.

(Irons) A specially composed "Te Deum" was played for the first and last time,...

..since the score for more than 200 years...

..was presumed lost.

(MUSIC OF "JE SUIS NAPOLEON" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Sirch, in Italian) My name is Licia Sirch,...

and I have taught for quite a long time at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan.

(Sirch, in Italian) Some time ago, in the State Archives,...

..I was lucky enough to find an extraordinary document:...

..a list of music from the Napoleonic period,...

..including a "Te Deum",...

..the one played in the Cathedral of the Duomo for Napoleon's coronation.

(Sirch, in Italian) And according to those documents,...

..the score was found in the Conservatory,...

..the musical school founded, as it happens, by Napoleon's stepson, Eugenio de Beauharnais.

(Sirch, in Italian) I searched our archives and eventually found it.

(Sirch, in Italian) The signature on the "Te Deum" is that of Francesco Pollini,...

..a prestigious musician in the Napoleonic court who was a pupil of Mozart.

(Sirch, in Italian) It was quite emotional to hold it in my hands.

(Sirch, in Italian) From that moment on I had only one thought:...

..to bring it back to life.

(Sirch, in Italian) It is a hymn of love for music.

(Sirch, in Italian) And if you get to the end of this story of Napoleon's life,...

..we will listen to them again,...

..together with those notes that vanished that day in 1805.

(THE WOMAN SINGS SOFTLY)

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

To understand Napoleon, what better place to begin...

..than Milan and the Braidense Library.

An exceptional work is conserved here:...

.."La Description de l'Égypte".

Twenty-three massive volumes,...

..the largest of them measuring a metre and a half.

A publishing venture that lasted over a decade.

They reveal a little known characteristic of Napoleon...

..that is fundamental to our understanding of the man:...

..his obsession with books, science and art.

An obsession he had carried from his youth.

So, when his thoughts first turned to a military expedition in Egypt,...

..he decided to invite 167 savants to join his army.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Scholars, scientists, chemists, engineers, historians, architects,...

..archaeologists and artists, the country's Académie-educated cultural élite.

(Irons) They set off alongside illiterate soldiers,...

..whose knowledge stretched to little more than weaponry.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Never before had military expeditions...

..seen professors lined side by side with fighting men.

(Irons) Yet, despite all the difficulties,...

..it was an opportunity to widen cultural horizons.

(Irons) Everyone wanted to travel to Egypt alongside the Napoleonic army.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) One of the savants was Gaspard Monge,...

..mathematician, the inventor of descriptive geometry,...

and one of the expedition's older members.

It's reported that before his departure he had a huge argument with his wife,...

..who told him: "You're too old for such adventures."

During the campaign in Italy Monge was the man...

..who carried away some Arabic typefaces from a palazzo of the Roman Curia,...

..which was later drawn upon to make proclamations in Egypt.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(El-Dessouki, in Arabic) When Napoleon came to Egypt,...

..what struck the population the most...

..were the proclamations written in Arabic.

(El-Dessouki, in Arabic) Owning a printing press afforded him the opportunity...

..to write about Egypt and the Egyptians,...

..it was a way of trying to appear in their eyes not as an invader,...

..but as a friend.

(El-Dessouki, in Arabic) The most interesting thing about these writings...

..is that they show that he was aware of the religious particularities...

..in Egyptian society, which was mostly Muslims,...

..and distinguished people on the basis of their faith.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(El-Dessouki, in Arabic) And so he wrote...

..that the differences between people were not to be found in faith or religion,...

..but in their mental capacity.

(El-Dessouki, in Arabic) This announcement was distributed in the streets...

..and in small neighborhoods to attract people's attention.

(MUSIC OF "ROSETTA STONE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) Imagine if you will,...

..280 ships, carrying 54 thousand sailors and soldiers,...

..arriving in the baking hot Egyptian port of Alexandria on 1st July 1798.

(Irons) Napoleon chose to land in the city founded by Alexander the Great,...

..whose magnificent Library had been the ancient world's largest,...

..until its demise halfway through the 7th century AD.

(MUSIC OF "ROSETTA STONE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Migliorini, in Italian) The Egyptian campaign is a constant shifting between two planes:...

..that of the telescope, of culture, of dreams of the East,...

..and that of the bayonets that serve to subdue a key country in Mediterranean geopolitics.

(MUSIC OF "ROSETTA STONE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) On the Giza plateau Napoleon made one of his most celebrated orations.

(Irons) "Soldiers, from the heights of these pyramids,..."

"..forty centuries look down upon you."

(MUSIC OF "ROSETTA STONE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) The French overrun the Mamluk troops with ease,...

..and while the fighting raged all around them,...

..the 167 savants sheltered in an infantry square.

(Irons) The moment the battle was over, the explorations began.

(MUSIC OF "ROSETTA STONE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) Down the Nile travelled the savants, as far as Thebes and Luxor.

(MUSIC OF "ROSETTA STONE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Semat, in French) The experts began their field research...

..with the help of technicians, particularly surveyors and cartographers.

(in French) They drew a map of the country...

..and made drawings of monuments and temples...

..that at the time were still covered in sand, like that at Karnak.

(Semat, in French) In particular, they executed reliefs of these temples,...

..measured them, traced the plants, elevation, and sectional views.

(Semat, in French) And in parallel, they undertook excavations:...

..it was the beginning, if you will, of modern archaeological excavations,...

..as they were done methodically, with a register of the lists of objects discovered...

..and the places of discovery to put it in context.

(Semat, in French) It was the beginning of true archaeological research.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Irons) The most important discovery came about by chance in the winter of the following year.

(Irons) During excavations in a place in the Delta called Rashid, or Rosetta,...

..a French officer stumbled upon a dark stone covered by inscriptions in different languages.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Irons) It was to be the stone that allowed Jean-François Champollion...

..to decipher hieroglyphic script in 1822.

(Irons) The key to unlock a long lost world had been found.

(Irons) European culture would change forever:...

..by the end of the 19th century, trips to the Nile were all the rage...

..and filmmakers like the Lumière brothers were not far behind.

(Irons) Egypt, after Napoleon, would never be the same.

(LAPPING WATER)

(Irons) In reality Napoleon's expedition had turned into a disaster.

(Irons) The English navy sank the entire French fleet at the Battle of the Nile...

..and overcame the French army on land.

(Irons) Napoleon escaped to Paris.

(Irons) But in the annals of history,...

..the discovery of this ancient Egyptian civilization and its monuments...

..transformed the military catastrophe into an archaeological and historical triumph.

(Irons) Napoleon later wrote:...

.."The months I spent in Egypt were the happiest of my life,..."

"..because they were incomparably rich in fervour of idealism."

(Irons) Look at this picture.

(Irons) During that middle-eastern campaign,...

..Napoleon had found himself in Jaffa, Palestine, with his army stricken by the plague.

(Irons) A few years later he would ask the painter Antoine-Jean Gros...

..to depict that episode.

(Irons) And for the first time, perhaps, we see a modern myth in the making.

(Irons) The magical power of a great leader...

..who doesn't fear to touch the suppurating sores of an infected victim.

(Belpoliti, in Italian) The power of the king or emperor is such that...

..it is communicated by touch akin to the power of Jesus who, according to the Gospels,...

..even to a person simply passing by and touching him,...

..could sense that omnipotence emanating from him and it became a healing.

(Belpoliti, in Italian) This gives the sense that the body of the leader,...

..the emperor, or the president is different from others.

(Belpoliti, in Italian) It speaks for me and speaks to me:...

..the eyes of the emperor, which are spoken of in narratives or even in descriptions,...

..have a distinct importance in the communication...

..of what we call political propaganda.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(MUSIC AT THE PIANO)

(Sirch, in Italian) But how could a new performance of the "Te Deum" be achieved?

(Sirch, in Italian) The first step had to be the transcription of the score.

(Sirch, in Italian) Maestro Marco Pace is working on it...

..and will follow all the phases from now on.

(MUSIC ON THE PIANO)

(Sirch, in Italian) We were both surprised...

..we found notes from the "Marseillaise" in the "Te Deum".

(Sirch, in Italian) Pollini paid homage to the song of the French revolutionaries.

(MUSIC ON THE PIANO)

"Once upon a time, in Paris, there lived a happy man."

"He was an old man by the name of Vivan Denon."

These are the opening words of a book written by Anatole France...

..at the end of the nineteenth century.

That man, Denon, was with Napoleon in Egypt...

..and would become the first Director of the Louvre museum.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Irons) Napoleon was just six years old when Denon made these sketches.

(Irons) He had gone to visit the father of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, then 81 years of age.

(Irons) He depicted him with his nightcap on,...

..his decrepit-looking face resembling that of a monkey.

(Irons) A major scandal ensued.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

Denon was a multi-talented aristocrat, witty and well read.

An artist, writer and libertine.

During the years of the Revolution he would have ended up on the guillotine...

..had it not been for his undisputed charm.

The French were scandalized when he published a series of erotic drawings,...

..but not the young general Napoleon Bonaparte.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Irons) They met in 1798,...

..at a party held by the aristocrat Talleyrand,...

..French Foreign Minister during the Revolution.

(Irons) Another chameleon-like character who could adapt to each regime-change.

(Banti, in Italian) And there he is in front of the buffet,...

he has taken a glass of lemonade and runs into a young man,...

..who instead has had some difficulty in getting to the buffet table.

(in Italian) Vivant Denon offers him his glass of lemonade and the two become friends.

(Banti, in Italian) The young man is Napoleon Bonaparte.

So it was with that glass of lemonade...

..that Vivant Denon became Napoleon's go-to man in the world of art.

The recently concluded Italian campaign...

..demonstrated how strategically important art had become...

..as a weapon in his quest for power.

(MUSIC OF "THE TRIUMPH" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) Military operations on the peninsula had been a blinding success.

(Irons) A year of battles that had given birth to the myth of the invincible general.

(Irons) Napoleon had triumphed with a poorly equipped army,...

..transforming a minor strategic front into the heart of Europe's battlefield.

(MUSIC OF "THE TRIUMPH")

(Ferrero, in Italian) The Italian Campaign is decisive in Napoleon's history...

..because it unlocks his potential: his abilities,...

..the goals he can achieve, and the political developments...

..that this campaign can deliver to him.

(Ferrero, in Italian) He can construct his own legend, his own myth,...

..which he does precisely by founding two newspapers...

..that are meant to glorify the exploits of the Italian army.

(Ferrero, in Italian) But Napoleon's communication...

..is an all-encompassing set of actions.

(Ferrero, in Italian) It is not merely words but images,...

..the power of which he knows all well...

..and which therefore immediately accompany his epic tale.

(MUSIC OF "THE TRIUMPH" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) Gros depicts Napoleon at the head of his army in Arcole.

(MUSIC OF "THE TRIUMPH")

(Irons) Philippoteaux portrays him in Rivoli,...

..against a backdrop of majestic mountains.

(Irons) Francois Lejeune captures him in command of the decisive battle of Lodi.

(MUSIC OF "THE TRIUMPH" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) Napoleon set in motion a momentous process of spoilation and pillage,...

..removing sculptures and paintings from churches, palazzi and museums...

..the length and breadth of the peninsular.

(Irons) For Napoleon, taking on the French revolutionary principles,...

..art would no longer be the property of the church or the nobility,...

..but of the State, and available to everyone.

(Irons) Far from being simply propaganda,...

..art stood at the heart of his complex, forward-looking power strategy,...

..which involved both the violence of war as well as the influence of culture.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Sgarabozza, in Italian) These masterpieces are also identified...

..through the reading of ancient literary texts such as the biographies of Vasari,...

..and are included in the peace treaties...

..that Napoleon and his emissaries sign with the ousted sovereigns.

(Sgarabozza, in Italian) These works then migrate from Italy to France,...

..ending up first in Paris.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) "Everything of beauty in Italy shall be ours", said the young general.

(Irons) No sooner said than done.

(Irons) The Napoleonic spoils of war are widely accepted...

..to be the greatest relocation of artworks in history.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Forty-eight hours before leaving for the Italian campaign,...

..Napoleon had married Joséphine de Beauharnais,...

..a Creole born in Martinique, and the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner.

(Irons) It was said she was ignorant and arrived in Paris with broken and black teeth.

(Irons) Nonetheless, everyone agreed: she was irresistible.

(Irons) Six years older than Napoleon, she became his greatest passion.

(ROMANTIC MUSIC)

(Migliorini, in Italian) She was already a well-known and very much loved woman,...

..and heavily courted in the Parisian salons of the revolution.

(Migliorini, in Italian) She was almost certainly the lover of Barras,...

..the president of the Directorate who, according to some,...

..gives her rather willingly to this young general who must go fight in Italy.

(Migliorini, in Italian) And most certainly, Napoleon maintained this love for Joséphine...

..throughout his whole life.

(ROMANTIC MUSIC)

(Banti, in Italian) She is a woman of great charm,...

..who manages to fit into the most fashionable circles of revolutionary France.

(Banti, in Italian) She has an unhappy marriage with the Viscount de Beauharnais,...

..who was executed during the period of Jacobinism:...

..she herself was in prison during that time but manages to save herself.

(Banti, in Italian) Hers is a very ancient regime interpretation...

..of emotional relationships, very free.

(Banti, in Italian) Napoleon has a slightly different conception of love,...

..closer to the newer understanding of romantic love:...

..a heart that rushes towards another heart exclusively and totally.

(ROMANTIC MUSIC)

From the front he wrote to Joséphine:...

.."Adieu, woman, torment, ..."

"..joy, hope and love of my life,..."

"..whom I love, whom I fear,..."

"..who inspires my tender sentiments, drawing me towards Nature,..."

"..and my impetuous emotions, volcanic like the thunderstorm".

(ROMANTIC MUSIC)

(Irons) "On awakening I am filled with you."

"Your portrait and the memory of last night's intoxicating pleasures..."

"..allowed my senses no rest."

"Sweet, matchless Joséphine, what a strange effect you have on my heart!"

"Are you angry? Are you sad?"

"My heart is broken with grief..."

(ROMANTIC MUSIC)

.."and there is no repose for your friend."

(ROMANTIC MUSIC)

(MUSIC FROM A PIANO AND VOCALIZING)

(Sirch, in Italian) The maestro chose the orchestra.

(MUSIC FROM A PIANO AND VOCALIZING)

(Sirch, in Italian) The soprano singer, the young musicians, will number thirty in total.

(Sirch, in Italian) Everyone will learn their part.

(MUSIC BY THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA AND VOCALIZING)

(Irons) While in Italy, Napoleon begged Joséphine to join him in Milan,...

..where he was planning his first campaign to relieve the peninsula...

..of some of its greatest art.

(Irons) Titian's "The Crowning of Thorns"...

..was removed from Milan's Santa Maria delle Grazie church.

(Irons) Christ's twisting body, the geometric violence of his tormentors...

..and the piercing colours signposted a turning point in the Veneto master's canon:...

..the bursting forth of Mannerism.

(Irons) This is what made the painting noteworthy,...

..and the French were not blind to its importance.

(Irons) Artworks as war reparations.

(Irons) It was with this formula that Napoleon had twenty paintings...

..sent to France from Parma on 9th May 1796.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Irons) In an effort to retain the most precious of them,...

..Correggio's "Madonna of Saint Jerome",...

..Duke Ferdinand I offered the Emperor a million francs for it to remain.

(Irons) The offer was refused.

(Irons) And it is said the Duke never again set foot in the room where the painting had hung.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Irons) With the arrival of the French army,...

..Venice lost the independence it had enjoyed for 1,200 years.

(Irons) The Republic which had defeated the Ottoman Empire at Lepanto...

..was simply wiped out.

(Irons) Following the peace treaty with Venice,...

..500 manuscripts and 18 paintings were handed over.

(Irons) Among these was "The Wedding at Cana" by Veronese.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Settis, in Italian) One of the best-known works...

..brought by the French army from Italy is the enormous canvas,...

..perhaps the largest ever painted, of Veronese's Wedding at Cana.

(Settis, in Italian) In order to bring it to Paris...

..it was cut into eight parts and then reassembled.

(Settis, in Italian) At the time of the restitution they did not return it,...

..arguing that if it were cut back into eight parts, it would be permanently ruined.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

In the 17th century, French critics called it "the triumph of painting itself".

(Saltzman) Louis XIV had tried to buy it.

(Saltzman) But the reason why this painting is so amazing...

..is because of Veronese's very loose handling of brilliant colors.

(Saltzman) Cezanne also copied figures of this painting,...

..and Van Gogh writes about it in a letter to his brother.

(THE WOMAN SINGS SOFTLY THE "TE DEUM")

(Sirch, in Italian) Three months of rehearsals for the "Te Deum",...

..Napoleon did not like the horn.

(WOMAN SINGING)

(Sirch, in Italian) in boarding school he challenged a friend,...

..who disturbed him by playing this instrument, to a duel.

(Sirch, in Italian) Marco follows the rehearsals of Giuseppina Bridelli,...

..the part reserved for the singer is fundamental to the piece.

(GIUSEPPINA BRIDELLI SINGS)

- What do you think? - (Marco Pace) Magnificent!

(MUSIC OF "MEMOIRES DE CORSE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) Napoleon loved music, he promoted the production of new operas...

..and was completely smitten by La Scala opera diva, Giuseppina Grassini.

(Irons) She later recalled that he was a hurried and distracted lover.

(Irons) But who was this young man who took up arms...

..while falling so readily into the arms of beautiful women?

(Irons) The man who both seduced and frightened Europe in equal measure?

(Irons) What were his origins?

(MUSIC OF "MEMOIRES DE CORSE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) He was born 15th August 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica,...

..and raised there, till at the age of nine...

..he was dispatched to the Brienne military academy in France.

(Ferrero, in Italian) He is the son of a Corsican lawyer of modest fortune...

..and builds this extraordinary career entirely on his own strength.

(Ferrero, in Italian) He is a lonely child and is teased because he dresses strangely,...

..speaks somewhat bad French and is a bit surly and grumpy.

(MUSIC OF "MEMOIRES DE CORSE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Charles Bonaparte, in French) I am the last descendant of Napoleon's brother,...

..King Jerome of Westphalia,...

..and I am considered the heir of the Bonaparte family.

(Bonaparte, in French) Napoleon was a much loved child in the family...

..and was surrounded by women, his mother, and his aunts.

(Bonaparte, in French) From this childhood he retained an ardor for the family.

(in French) He was a real Corsican, after all: a man from the South,...

..who, like the Italians, knew the value of the family...

..and the importance of parents and children, who are beloved in the home.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Irons) He was the second of eight children of his mother, Letizia Ramolino,...

..an attractive and determined woman.

(Irons) He would later say it was to her that he owed all his success.

(Irons) At home, Corsican was spoken, a dialect similar to Genoese,...

..and at school he studied Italian.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Irons) When young Napoleon was finally admitted to Brienne,...

..with a scholarship for impoverished nobles,...

..life was immediately challenging.

(MUSIC OF "MEMOIRES DE CORSE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Ferrero, in Italian) He suffers from being marginalized...

..but takes refuge in study and especially in learning mathematics.

(Ferrero, in Italian) He is a man of numbers...

..and will always consider himself a mathematician throughout his life,...

..for he realizes the power and strength of numbers.

(Prévot, in French) He was an absolutely ferocious reader,...

..and was extensively knowledgeable, which was quite typical of his time.

(Prévot, in French) He knew Latin authors by heart...

..and had great scientific competence.

(Prévot, in French) And lest we forget, he studied artillery,...

..which is based on mathematical studies, and had a great historical understanding.

(Prévot, in French) Knowledge was fundamental to him.

(TOLLING BELLS)

(Irons) It was in this period that Napoleon acquired discipline,...

..strategic intelligence and physical courage.

(Irons) He was a fine horseman, staying on the saddle till he dropped.

(Irons) He kept to himself, buried in books...

..and developing an omnivorous thirst for knowledge,...

..which would hold him in good stead in the future.

(Hicks) One of the things we have on his own account,...

..he says it himself he loves power, he says: "I play it like a violin," he literally says.

(Hicks) Perhaps it's interesting he is a second son.

(Hicks) The firstborn inherits, the second must make his way in the world.

(Hicks) Napoleon is obsessed with being in control, and that drives everything he does.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Clearly, Napoleon was an ambitious young man,...

..as we see from his identification with Hannibal and, more especially, Julius Caesar.

(Irons) At 20 years of age, he would spend his nights reading De Bello Gallico,...

..while in the streets outside the French Revolution raged.

(Migliorini, in Italian) He believes that the greatness, the beauty,...

..and the strength that the ancients epitomized lives in him:...

..growing in this bulimic and stormy youth of his,...

..it shall reappear to the world.

(Migliorini, in Italian) He will not say that he is an imitator of Caesar or Alexander.

(in Italian) But he is Caesar. He is Alexander.

(MUSIC OF "NAPOLEON'S DREAMS" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) For a man who would be Caesar,...

..the city of dreams could be none other than Rome:...

..a place with which to identify, and then a place to plunder.

(Irons) The Treaty of Tolentino, signed on 29th February 1797,...

..imposed on the Papacy the handing over of 500 manuscripts and 100 art works.

(Irons) Among these were some of the greatest masterpieces of classical art...

..conserved in the Vatican museums, like the "Belvedere Apollo"...

..and the statue of Laocoön and his sons....

(Irons) There were even plans to dismantle the Trajan Column and take it to Paris.

(MUSIC OF "NAPOLEON'S DREAMS" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) At the foot of statue of Pasquino,...

..where the Romans traditionally leave amusing messages against the government,...

..someone has written: "Are the French thieves?"

(Irons) Not all of them, but Bonaparte and his friends, certainly.

(in Italian) The first withdrawals following the signing of the Tolentino Treaty...

..are certainly a shock for the city,...

..in particular for the artistic community.

(Sgarabozza, in Italian) It is a shock that translates into petitions and public complaints.

(Irons) The Capitoline Museums were hit hard.

(Irons) The Gallery of Statues, the first public museum in the world,...

..had been inaugurated only seventy years before.

(Irons) A treasure house full of marble gods and emperors,...

..exemplary works from a classical world...

..that once they had been transported across the Alps would turn Paris...

..into a new Athens, or a new Rome.

(Irons) The carts were piled high with masterpieces...

..including the "Capitoline Venus",...

..a variation on the statue of Aphrodite created by Praxiteles...

..in the 4th century BC for the goddess's sanctuary in Cnidus.

(Irons) The "Dying Gaul" also took its leave of the museum.

(Irons) It was a Roman copy of several Hellenistic sculptures...

..celebrating the victory of Attalus I of Pergamon...

..over the Galatians, the Celtic people of Asia Minor,...

..as the warrior's moustache suggests.

(Settis, in Italian) In revolutionary France, even before Napoleon,...

..the idea had emerged that France should be the birthplace of the arts...

..just as it was the birthplace of freedom.

(in Italian) The place where the most famous works are brought from Rome...

..and all over Italy but also from Holland or Germany,...

..because France is the only place where they can truly create,...

..where they can truly inspire the people living under a regime of total freedom.

(Settis, in Italian) The interior minister,...

..in a speech at the Convention of the revolutionary parliament, said:

.."Oh old masters, oh Phidias, oh Michelangelo:..."

..you have produced these things for the French people.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) One work from the Capitoline Museums...

..symbolised the transition from ancient Greco-Roman liberty...

..to the liberté of the French Revolution.

(Irons) Transported to Paris in 1797, it was an emblem of tyrannicide and Republican virtues:

..the "Capitoline Brutus", the bronze bust with the eyes of glass paste and ivory.

(Irons) It is traditionally identified with Marco Junius Brutus,...

..who ended the despotic reign of the Tarquins and founded the Roman republic.

(Irons) Hardly a hostage of war for the French then; more a moral father.

(Irons) His resting place should be none other...

..than the Louvre.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Martinez, in French) The Louvre Museum was created in 1793,...

..a year after the fall of the monarchy.

(in French) It was a museum that opened in the midst of revolutionary turmoil.

(in French) Therefore, we will have to wait for the stability...

..of the Napoleonic era for the Louvre to truly open.

(Martinez, in French) The museum which will be called the Musée Napoléon is the real Louvre.

(Martinez, in French) It is the first real opening, a foundational moment.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Irons) In later life, Napoleon saw the Louvre as his crowning achievement.

(Irons) The Musée Napoléon, as it was called at the time,...

..was the reflection of his grandeur,...

..the gathering place for all the works he'd requisitioned throughout Europe.

(Irons) For his second wedding to Marie Louise of Austria,...

..these galleries were chosen as the backdrop to the celebrations.

(Irons) But the Louvre was more than a wedding venue.

(Irons) It was a cornerstone of Napoleon's cultural policy.

(Settis, in Italian) The aspiration was to be the central museum of Europe,...

..particularly from an educational standpoint.

(in Italian) And the idea was that having works of art of this level,...

..all collected together, would trigger a season of great creativity.

(Settis, in Italian) Art would flourish even more:...

not only French art but all of Europe, including the Italians,...

..as well as the manufacturing of vases and precious objects...

..which would be inspired by these works of art.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Napoleon had appointed his old friend from the Egyptian campaign...

..as director of the Louvre: Vivant Denon, a wise choice.

(Irons) Denon will be remembered as the first modern museum director:...

..the huge galleries were no longer storerooms for war booty...

..but, rather, a well-organized encyclopedia...

..of artistic beauty from all ages, a universal museum.

(Irons) The poet, Holderlin, claimed that he had got to know Greece at the Louvre...

..without ever setting foot in Athens.

(Irons) Everything was to be found there, all styles and periods,...

..none of the great masters forgotten, the works arranged in chronological order...

..to facilitate understanding, by school and affiliation.

(Irons) Art had become a marvellous visual story,...

..open to comparisons, cross-references and criticism.

(Martinez, in French) The museum aspires to be universal because,...

..from an ideological perspective, France aspires to be the homeland of universality,...

..of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

(Martinez, in French) This means that the Louvre is not created as a French art museum,...

..the French wanted to display other cultures, the cultures of the entire world.

(Martinez, in French) And we cannot understand this claim of universality...

..without understanding that France wanted to take the place of the Papal State:...

..therefore the museum is universal just as the Catholic Church is universal,...

..and exhibits all cultures for people to come and admire.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) The exhibiting criteria adopted by Denon for paintings...

..were based on the idea of absolute beauty as laid down by Vasari.

(Irons) At its centre were the Italian Renaissance and the classicism of Raphael,...

..including his successors, like Guido Reni and Annibale Carracci.

(Irons) The subject of war spoils and their return to their country of origin...

..is a thorny issue,...

..dividing critics and public alike.

(Irons) The Louvre was the first museum to be "open to all":..

..art that belonged to everyone.

(Irons) Despite the restitution of some of Napoleon's collection,...

..it has survived as a template...

..for all museums of today.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

There's no doubt that the French Revolution was a bloodthirsty affair,...

..even though it was motivated by the drive for a more egalitarian society.

Napoleon accepted these contradictions and made them his own.

(Irons) Once in power, after the coup d'état of 18th of Brumaire,...

..he put a stop to the revolution's violence.

From then on, no-one would be guillotined for their opinions.

The economy benefited as tranquillity returned.

School reform and the Napoleonic Code, launched in 1804,...

..served as the foundations for a new society...

..based on merit, not blue blood:...

..armed with individual worth,...

..now anyone could succeed in life, if they wanted.

(MUSIC OF "THE TRIUMPH" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Migliorini, in Italian) The great support he receives...

..is certainly not from the small number of nobility that he puts back into circulation,...

..but rather from many of the bourgeoisie that he has made wealthy,...

..and turned into the protagonist of the nineteenth century:...

..in France, but perhaps, I would argue, in all of Europe.

(Irons) A different world entirely from that of the Ancient Régime:...

..this was the reign of the hard working bourgeoisie.

(Irons) And Napoleon worked harder than anyone.

(Irons) An unbridled energy from whose notice nothing escaped.

(Ferrero, in Italian) What still impresses us about Napoleon today...

..is his incredible ability to work.

(in Italian) It was said that he could have the gaze of God,...

..because he could grasp the universe while at the same time hold the gaze of an ant.

(Ferrero, in Italian) He formulates grand strategies but also minute details.

(Ferrero, in Italian) When he is in Moscow he even dictates the billboard of the Paris Opera.

(in Italian) When he is in Spain he designs a plaque, and a fountain in a small French town.

He knows everything.

(Hicks) Napoleon is extremely charming,...

..extraordinarily fascinating to people who are talking to him,...

..he is very concise and always says precisely no more than is necessary,...

..he goes straight to the point.

(Hicks) When he enters the room you can't help but look at him.

(Irons) When he became Emperor in Notre Dame on 2nd December 1804,...

..he had all of Paris in his thrall.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) The church was crammed with guests, mostly military, since dawn.

(Irons) Just before the start Napoleon bent down to his brother, Giuseppe, and said:...

.."If only father could see us now!"

(Irons) Then the coup de théatre:...

..instead of waiting for Pope Pius VII to crown him, he crowned himself.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) One of the most celebrated gestures in history.

(Irons) Never again would he bow down before the power of the church,...

..not even for reasons of protocol.

(Irons) A memorable moment that survives only in a preparatory sketch...

..for the work David was commissioned to paint to celebrate the event.

(Irons) Napoleon wanted his greatness to shine through, not his arrogance,...

..and in the gigantic painting now to be found in the Louvre,...

..David complies with this request to portray him crowning Joséphine.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) David's painting is almost a photograph in some respects,...

..because it is so precise in its details,...

..it clearly depicts the dislocation of spaces and positions...

..and it shows us something rather singular: that everyone was dressed in a strange way.

(Migliorini, in Italian) We wouldn't expect to see those plumes, those shoes, those socks.

(Migliorini, in Italian) It is in the mixture of many aesthetics of the past...

..where Napoleon truly reveals that genius of synthesis...

..or, if you prefer, the pastiche or patchwork, however we want to call it:...

..that is, to take everything that has already been done...

..and reformulate it in a totally new way.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Irons) One thing Napoleon knew is to how to play the crowd.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Irons) Today we'd talk about mass psychology,...

..and that turned him into a formidable manipulator of the collective imagination.

(Irons) He knew how to diversify communication.

(Irons) If paintings spoke to intellectuals and artists,...

..the simple illustrations of the Epinal prints were for the people.

(Irons) We must speak to the eyes, said Napoleon.

(Irons) That's why he supported artists...

..who had to nourish the cult surrounding his image.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Irons) Jacques-Louis David, the painter of the "Revolutionary martyrs", was the chosen one:...

..copy after copy of his paintings left the studio...

..precisely because of their propaganda value.

(Irons) One of the first portraits of the great man, "Napoleon Crossing the Alps",...

..was reproduced on thousands of vases, pendulum clocks, jigsaws and postage stamps.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Prévot, in French) In this painting, which transforms reality,...

..because we know very well that Napoleon did not cross the Alps on a fiery horse,...

..but instead did so in a more prosaic and much more practical way, on a mule.

(Prévot, in French) He is a man showing the path to his contemporaries.

(Prévot, in French) It seems to say: "Follow me and I will take you to the summit".

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) But it was Ingres who painted the portrait of him...

..seating on his imperial throne in 1806:...

..an image of timeless power, sacred and solemn.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Ferrero, in Italian) I believe that the dictators of the twentieth century...

..have all studied the Napoleon case in depth, and they have learned a lot from him.

(in Italian) First of all the techniques of communication,...

..the theatrical use of the masses, the attention...

..given in particular to the training of young people,...

..and then of course the entire iconographic apparatus of imperiality,...

..hence the eagles, the laurels, the great parades, the great ceremonies.

(Ferrero, in Italian) It is evident that the dictators of the twentieth century...

..were directly inspired by this architect of a new image of power,...

..which had an extraordinarily suggestive force.

(From the TV, in Italian) Mussolini inaugurates the new halls...

(Irons) Benito Mussolini called Napoleon "the Italian on the French throne",...

..declaring him the link between Julius Caesar and himself.

(Irons) The leader who works untiringly, just like his people.

(Irons) As Napoleon would do, Mussolini left the lights on in his office...

..as a sign of never-ending activity.

(Irons) And when he was told of his appointment as head of government,...

..Mussolini likewise told his brother Arnaldo:...

.."If only father was here."

(Irons) Fathers: men that can never be conquered.

(Lingiardi, in Italian) This same phrase: "If our father could see us",...

..Freud said on top of the Acropolis to his brother, citing Napoleon's own words.

(in Italian) And then he reports a fainting episode in his memories,...

..and then he interprets this fainting episode as a theme of conflict with his own father.

(Lingiardi, in Italian) That is, if their father had seen him,...

..he would surely have recognized that the son had arrived where the father had not.

(Hicks) Mussolini wrote a play about the Hundred Days,...

..so we know specifically that he was very interested in Napoleon.

(Hicks) Even Hitler was obsessed with Napoleon.

(Hicks) But the wagnerism outnesses of the dictators,

..of the totalitarian dictators of the twentieth century are not found in Napoleon, in any way.

He doesn't behave like a totalitarian dictator:...

..we don't have a secret police, we don't have gulags,...

..We don't have concentration camps.

(SOUNDS OF VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS)

(SOUNDS OF VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS)

(SOUNDS OF VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS)

(SOUNDS OF VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS)

(UNINTELLIGIBLE DIALOGUES)

(SOUNDS OF VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS)

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) The mantle worn by Napoleon at his coronation as King of Italy in 1805,...

..is kept in the Museum of the Risorgimento in Milan.

(Irons) A delicate object, in need of restoration after two centuries.

(Irons) The mantle is taken to the Workshop of Pietre Dure in Florence.

(Irons) A conservation work that is part of the Restituzioni campaign,...

..undertaken by the Intesa Sanpaolo banking group to look after Italy's cultural heritage.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) At Thierry Radelet's laboratory in Turin,...

..restoration work is under way on the regalia from the coronation.

(Miazzo, in Italian) In restoration practices,...

..the first intervention is diagnostic, therefore radiographs...

..and XRF analyses were performed.

(Miazzo, in Italian) Through the radiographs we were also able...

..to identify the different interlocking and holding systems...

..as well as the structures that are part of each object,...

..and in some cases also proceed with disassembly.

(Miazzo, in Italian) After that, the restoration focused...

..above all on an intervention aimed at the surface...

..which, being completely sulphured, was totally black, dark, opaque.

(in Italian) Finally we managed to bring out the true metallic aspect of the surface.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Irons) The Emperor likes Milan.

It was a modern city where lively conversation could be had with...

..cultured, scientific minds.

Here Napoleon rediscovered the joie de vivre of Paris...

..in an atmosphere that was sweeter and on a more human scale.

(Irons) And the Milanese reciprocated his affection:...

..they saw him as the man of the future, a forward thinker...

..who heralded the arrival of political freedom and a more liberal way of life.

Women cast aside their stays and corsets,...

..opting for plunging necklines, bare arms and even semi-naked backs...

..as a new sensuality took hold.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) The mass for Napoleon's incoronation as king of Italy...

..took place on 26th May 1805,...

..in the presence of eight cardinals and 30,000 people.

(Irons) The church was very beautiful, said Napoleon.

(Irons) The ceremony was as good as that in Paris,...

..the difference being the splendid weather.

(Irons) Details of what happened that day can be found in the State Archives of Milan.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Compagnoni, in Italian) One of the most important documents we have...

..is the oath that Napoleon took in the Cathedral of Milan.

(Compagnoni, in Italian) He swears to respect himself...

..and to enforce the law on political freedoms.

(in Italian) As such, it almost seems that he puts himself on the same level as his subjects.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) The most eagerly awaited moment of the entire ceremony...

..was when Napoleon put on the iron crown of the Lombard kings,...

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

..an object of almost mythical connotations.

(Irons) Oval in shape, it belongs among the treasure of the Duomo cathedral in nearby Monza.

(Irons) Starting with Charlemagne, numerous Holy Roman Emperors have worn the crown,...

..and wearing it today sent out a clear message to the whole of Europe.

(Irons) As in Paris, Napoleon refused to allow anyone of the clergy to crown him.

(Irons) He crowned himself, again, adding for good measure the words:...

.."God gave this to me, woe betide anyone who touches it".

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) May 1805 was an eventful date that would be celebrated...

..not only in the history books but, more importantly, in stone.

(Irons) Because in this year of coronation an event...

..the Milanese had awaited for over three centuries finally came about.

(Irons) The facade of the Duomo cathedral was completed,...

..just in time for the coronation mass.

(in Italian) Good morning everyone.

(in Italian) We will now try a piece by Francesco Pollini,...

..an Italian composer who studied with Mozart and a great friend of Bellini.

(in Italian) Bellini dedicated "La Sonnambula" to him, but he is especially famous...

..because of the treatise he wrote for piano, used throughout the 19th century.

(in Italian) It is the first time for all of us, for me and for you, so let's see. Good luck.

(THE ORCHESTRA PLAYS THE "TE DEUM")

(Sirch, in Italian) These notes that the orchestra is rehearsing today...

..were played when Napoleon had just crowned himself.

(Sirch, in Italian) The musicians and the audience...

..must have been thrilled by that bold gesture.

(Sirch, in Italian) The atmosphere of this score is serious, solemn,...

..but it was probably performed with great emotion.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) Sorry, I doubt that you would prefer a slightly rougher tempo.

(in Italian) - If we can go a bit straighter... - It's a bit heavy

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Irons) On 15th August 1809,...

..to celebrate Napoleon's 40th birthday,...

..the Pinacoteca di Brera museum was inaugurated in Milan.

(Irons) Its most important works derive from this era.

(Irons) Like Piero della Francesca's Montefeltro Altarpiece, at Brera since 1811.

Brera was the museum that Napoleon wanted to be the Louvre of Italy.

He meant an instrument of popular education, open to the public.

A new and dynamic way to create contemporary art,...

..art that was relevant to his time.

That was Napoleon's vision.

(Irons) Brera was something of an exception.

(Irons) While the rest of Italy was being plundered of works to send to France,...

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

..this new museum housed a collection destined to remain in Milan,...

..for the benefit of all.

(Irons) Paintings were even exchanged,...

..with the Louvre sending over works that would help complete the exhibition.

(Irons) The nucleus of the collection was made up of works...

..looted from all around the peninsula, starting with the north, and particularly Veneto,...

..with its masters Giovanni Bellini, Veronese and Mantegna.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) As was with the Louvre, Raphael was the Brera's very own star.

(Irons) His 1504 masterpiece, "The Marriage of the Virgin",...

..became the centrepiece of the museum.

(Irons) It was donated to Napoleon's General Lechi...

..by terrorised towns people in central Italy in return for his leaving them in peace.

But when Napoleon's troops moved south towards Urbino,...

..and got Città di Castello,...

..the Sposalizio was "donated" to the invading army.

Now, that "donated" has to be put in quotation marks,...

..because it clearly was not a donation made willingly.

(Bradburne) And Città di Castello still envies the fact or resents the fact that...

..painting was taken from them, and possibly resents the fact that it's here at Brera.

What is a gift,...

..when it's a gift to an invading general?

That would take a serious code case to sort out.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Napoleon's presence can still be felt today in the shape of "Mars the Peacemaker",...

..a statue by the most important sculptor of the time, Antonio Canova.

(Bradburne) Canova's bronze is in the courtyard and the gesso,...

..the plaster version is here, in one of the four Napoleonic rooms.

(Bradburne) This statue is extraordinary:...

..muscular and athletic, it recalls the Greek marble statues,...

..and indeed it has a portrait based on Napoleon.

Canova went to Paris twice to do studies for this particular head.

(Bradburne) You might think that Napoleon would have been thrilled with this statue,...

..in fact he didn't like it at all, he didn't want it to be shown.

Napoleon considered it what he called too "athletic".

We don't really know what that means.

Did he considered it a kind of photoshop?

Did he considered it too homoerotic?

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Ever since becoming emperor, Napoleon had courted Canova.

(Irons) Or "the new Phidias" as he was widely known,...

..because of the sensual naturalness of his sculpting in the style of the ancients.

(Irons) A classicist who had his assistants read Homer's verses to him while he worked.

(Irons) Because they provided his gestures with rhythm and gave dignity to his work.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) Antonio Canova is the greatest living sculptor,...

..and perhaps the greatest living artist of the time.

Napoleonic power cannot but have Canova on his side.

(Sgarabozza, in Italian) Many works for the members of the Bonaparte family...

..are commissioned to the sculptor,...

..and works by Canova for other clients are also purchased...

..by the members of the Bonaparte family, which are then replicated.

(Sgarabozza, in Italian) Canova becomes an artist whose works the family collects.

(Irons) But the relationship with Canova was strained.

(Irons) An international artist, many enemies of France were among his clients:...

..the Tsar of Russia, the Viennese royal family and the much hated English.

(Irons) Canova was far from happy with all the lootings of Italian works,...

..and resented Napoleon's ceding of his homeland, Venice, to the Austrians.

(Irons) But of course, it was hard to refuse the advances of Europe's most powerful man.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Canova sculpted the most famous bust of Napoleon,...

..replicated dozens of times:...

..the virile nose, the feisty mouth, the profound gaze.

(Irons) The First Consul of France looked more like an ancient Roman.

(Irons) With some reluctance, Canova helped to sustain the myth,...

..but after Napoleon's fall he turned into his nemesis,...

..helping to deconstruct the myth...

..by insisting the Louvre to have Italy's stolen works returned.

(Settis, in Italian) This restitution was fought hard by the French,...

..even with legal arguments, but in the end it did actually take place.

(in Italian) They were obliged to make this restitution. There was no money.

(in Italian) Who was supposed to pay the costs for this massive transportation of works of art?

(Settis, in Italian) Canova talked about it with the Duke of Wellington...

..who told him: "I'll take care of it".

(in Italian) So the expenses for the return of the works of art to Italy,...

..including the works of art in Rome, were largely paid by the Duke of Wellington,...

..who then raised funds subsequently, they were returned using British funds.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Napoleon's drive for modernisation benefitted Paris more than any other city.

(Irons) He lacked the time to equal the achievements of the Roman emperors...

..and architects, but a number of new projects would leave their mark on the capital.

(Irons) Like the Pont des Arts, the first iron bridge to cross the Seine.

(Douvette, in French) In 1805, after the Austerlitz campaign,...

..Napoleon told his soldiers, "You will return to your homes through a triumphal arch".

(Douvette, in French) He thus asks Charles Persier and Pierre Fontaine,...

..the official architects of the regime, to build the arch of the Carrousel.

(Douvette, in French) It is a copy of the arch of Septimius Severus in Rome,...

..it has the same proportions, the same foundation.

(Douvette, in French) And on the summit, the quadriga of horses...

..from Piazza San Marco in Venice is installed, brought from Italy.

(Douvette, in French) Napoleon also had a second arch built...

..and had it placed at the entrance to the city.

(Douvette, in French) He chooses the Champs Élysée,...

..which at the time was not very populated, and positions it at a great height.

(in French) Therefore you need an arch that is very grand and that can be seen from afar,...

..this is why L'Arc de Triomphe is three or four times larger than the arch of the Carrousel...

..and larger than the ancient Roman arches.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) Neoclassicism with more than a hint of Rome about it...

..and elements of ancient Egypt:...

..the Empire Style that would glorify Napoleonic power...

..was to be found primarily in furnishings,...

..as can still be seen at Fontainebleau, the most lavish of Napoleon's palaces.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) It was here that Pope Pius VII was imprisoned,...

..an episode that was explored in the first of many films about Napoleon.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Beyeler, in French) The best definition of Fontainebleau...

..is the one that Napoleon himself gave to Sant'Elena,...

..far from the splendor of this castle:...

..the house of centuries, the true abode of kings.

(Irons) But sic transit gloria.

(Irons) A few years later, in April 1814,...

..in those same luxurious rooms,...

..Napoleon would have to face the reality of bitter defeat after years of victories.

(Irons) Here he would sign his abdication.

(Irons) And one night, shut up inside his apartments,...

..he attempted to end his life.

(Irons) Hearing his cries of pain, his assistants ran in and saved him.

(MUSIC OF THE "TE DEUM")

(GIUSEPPINA BRIDELLI SINGS THE "TE DEUM")

(in Italian) Excuse me Giuseppina, I think it's better to move...

(in Italian) Yes, let's move it a little bit.

(in Italian) And I've seen a rather unique bow stroke, all up bow, madam?

(in Italian) - Perhaps try it looser? - Yes, of course

(Pace, in Italian) Thank you.

(GIUSEPPINA BRIDELLI SINGS THE "TE DEUM")

Years lived to the full, yet not without disappointments:...

..Napoleon was becoming intolerant,...

..beginning to ignore his most trusted advisers.

His capacity for thinking and doing different things at the same time...

..had turned into an obsession, a neurosis.

(Irons) He would go through his account books,...

..checking the tuppence-ha'penny worth on what his hunting dogs should be eating.

He literally couldn't see the wood for the trees,...

..and he began to lose his way.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) For some time Joséphine had been absent from his side.

(Irons) In 1809 Napoleon had married Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma,...

..and the much wished sought son had appeared two years later.

(Irons) A dynastic or a geopolitical calculation?

(Irons) Or maybe the unconscious yearning to have a real emperor,...

..Francis I of Austria, as his father-in-law?

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Migliorini, in Italian) Maria Luisa is the freshness of youth,...

..it is said that she quickly consummates her first relationship...

..in the carriage by which Maria Luisa is taken to France.

(in Italian) So he does not wait for her to get to Paris but instead goes to meet her.

(Prévot, in French) The two will get along very well,...

..and they will respect each other very much for the duration of their life together.

(Prévot, in French) Napoleon is thrilled to have this young bride by his side,...

..an archduchess of Austria who was raised to be a bride of kings,...

..emperors, grand dukes...

(Prévot, in French) She suits him perfectly.

(MUSIC OF "MEMOIRES DE CORSE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) The youthful Napoleon's dream of becoming a new Caesar...

..took on real meaning as bowed over the cot of his son,...

..Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte,...

..who he nominated King of Rome.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) At the time of his birth the French army had already occupied the city for two years.

(MUSIC OF "MEMOIRES DE CORSE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Pupillo, in Italian) It is interesting to note that this title of King of Rome...

..is entrusted to him even before his birth.

(in Italian) Here is a desire to imagine that he will inaugurate a new era for Rome:...

..there is an important literary reference herein,...

..which is that of the IV eclogue of Virgil,...

..the birth of the child-god that begins a new epoch.

(MUSIC OF "MEMOIRES DE CORSE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) It was planned for Rome to become the Empire's second capital after Paris,...

..and dozens of building projects were started.

(MUSIC OF "MEMOIRES DE CORSE" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) In the early 19th century Rome was a dusty, decadent place,...

..but the French viewed it differently: to them it was ancient Rome,...

..a city of dreams to be restored to its original glory.

(Irons) The Colosseum was cleared of the haylofts and barns...

..that had blighted the area for centuries;...

..debris were removed and the drainage repaired.

(Irons) The area around the Trajan Column...

..took on the rational and ordered appearance it still has today.

(Irons) Most importantly, Napoleon's workforce transformed the Roman Forum...

..into an archeological park:...

..the Jardin du Capitole.

(Almoguera, in Spanish) One of the engines of political propaganda for the French Empire...

..in Rome was a continuous confrontation with the Papal government.

(Almoguera, in Spanish) What does the Napoleonic government do?

(Almoguera, in Spanish) They collect all the criticism addressed to the Pope...

..and the Papal city and try to turn them against them.

(Almoguera, in Spanish) Thus an interesting dynamic is created,...

..a symbolism of restoration...

..which confers onto Napoleon a transformation into the new Restitutor Urbis,...

..and every layer of land that is removed from these monuments...

..is like a century of papal rule being eliminated.

(Almoguera, in Spanish) The restoration of Rome is possible thanks to the Napoleonic government.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Irons) It's not true that everything leaves its trace,...

..even in record-obsessed regimes like Napoleon's.

(Irons) Only distant echoes remain of the extravagance that occurred in those years,...

..such as the nocturnal illumination of ancient monuments...

..to mark the birthday of the young King of Rome.

(Irons) Who, it transpired, like his father,...

..would never set his foot in the city.

(MUSIC OF "AMBITIONS" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(GIUSEPPINA BRIDELLI SINGS THE "TE DEUM")

"Rule 1, on page 1..."

"..of the book of war,..."

"..is: 'Do not march on Moscow'."

"Various people have tried it,..."

"..Napoleon and Hitler,..."

"..and it is no good."

Mm.

Thus spoke the British soldier, field marshall Montgomery,...

..in the House of Lords in May 1962.

History is a fine teacher,...

..but Napoleon had yet to learn this lesson,...

..and on 24th June 1812,...

..he crossed the eastern border with over 600,000 men,...

..the biggest expeditionary force that had ever been assembled.

And had it for Moscow.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Irons) Waiting for them was the army of Tsar Alexander I.

(Irons) But, being constantly outmanoeuvred by the French,...

..Russian troops withdrew to avoid a final confrontation.

(Irons) The French advanced, only to find Moscow deserted,...

..and engulfed in flames.

After four months General Winter was still skirmishing on the forbidding Russian plains.

Time, the freezing cold and General Kutuzov's strategy...

..outmanoeuvred the French and they were forced into retreat.

Homeward-bound, hundreds of thousands would die...

..of hunger and cold.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Migliorini, in Italian) The accumulated heritage of military knowledge in soldiers...

is lost in the Russian campaign.

(Migliorini, in Italian) It is very relevant that Napoleon has slipped, so to speak,...

..he has fallen into the maelstrom that he himself had always contemplated in some way...

..but had always looked at from a distance.

(Migliorini, in Italian) He was a man capable of looking at the abyss with a clear eye.

(in Italian) Russia, on the other hand, showed that he could indeed end up in the vortex...

..at a certain point, out of dizziness, out of fascination.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Irons) The Grande Armée lost a total of 540,000 men.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Irons) An entire generation of victorious warriors vanished in the snow.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Irons) Shortly afterwards, with only the remains of his army,...

..he suffered great defeat at Leipzig,...

..renounced his throne and was exiled to the island of Elba.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Irons) On 4th May 1814, under English escort,...

..the defeated Emperor landed on Elba, or the Comedy Kingdom, as he called it:...

..224 square kilometres against the 860,000...

..of the grand Empire he had created and now lost.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Irons) Another island, like the one he'd been born on,...

..the feeling that he was somehow back where he started.

(Irons) But his impulse to plan, create and command...

..never left him throughout his nine months of exile.

(DRIPPING WATER AND SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS)

(Irons) On his second day of exile,...

..he was already to be found deep in the bowels of the island inspecting the iron mines.

(Irons) They'd been workers for millennia, since the times of the Etruscans and the Romans.

(Irons) Napoleon decided to increase production,...

..otherwise, he calculated, after two years or so, he would be broke.

(Battaglini, in Italian) Napoleon had great projects...

..for the development of the steel industry,...

..he had an extremely interesting triangulation in mind...

..between the iron mines of Elba,...

..the timber and coal reserves of Corsica...

..and workshops to be located in Provence.

(Irons) Of course, there was boredom, sadness and anxiety.

(Irons) Napoleon had become more corpulent...

..and found it harder to get about,...

..but this didn't prevent him from strolling sorrowfully along the shoreline...

..whilst grieving for Joséphine,...

..who had died shortly after the start of his exile.

(Irons) He missed his son too and he missed his wife, Marie Louise,...

..who chose not to join him, preferring instead to continue her affair with an Austrian count.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Irons) In Portoferraio, Napoleon had chosen Villa dei Mulini as his official residence,...

..but life seemed empty without his savants,...

..and the dearth of conversation found him burying his head in his books.

(Irons) On his last night at Fontainebleau he had salvaged 300 volumes from his library,...

..the books he loved most.

(in Italian) There is a moment in which we can see a Napoleon who is contented.

(in Italian) The man of excesses, the man of the most dramatic conditions,...

..at a certain point seems like might be satisfied.

(Migliorini, in Italian) He is content to play king...

..with the economic renewal of this tiny island.

(Migliorini, in Italian) His has an existence that is at times decidedly domestic.

(in Italian) And then there is the other Napoleon, the one...

..who instead craves an existence with different levels of adrenaline.

(Irons) A master of symbols, Napoleon bequeathed to posterity the key...

..to understanding his escape from Elba, a kind of footnote, if you will.

(Irons) Before embarking for France on 26th February, 1815,...

..he placed on the desk in his study the biography of Charles V,...

..the Emperor who abdicated in old age and withdrew to a convent.

(Irons) That, he seemed to be saying, is not my destiny.

(Irons) I will die on my horse.

(MUSIC OF "JE SUIS NAPOLEON" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

When the battle of Waterloo is played out in simulation...

..by military academies, the French normally win.

In the simulation Napoleon attacks the English at first light,...

..before the Prussians had arrived in support, and he wipes them out.

On more than one occasion Napoleon was within a hair's breadth of victory.

So why in reality...

..did he lose the Battle of Waterloo?

(MUSIC OF "WATERLOO" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) History says he entered the fray late, giving the choice of terrain to the enemy.

(Irons) That his cavalry charged at the wrong moment.

(Irons) That by now his enemies knew his every strategy,...

..that even fate was against him.

Maybe, the truth is...

..that Napoleon had just had enough.

That when he heard the shout: "La garde recule!",...

..the legendary imperial guard is retreating,...

..he even felt a certain relief.

Maybe he handed himself over to the English...

..with the conviction they'd provide him...

..with a little cottage in the countryside for his old age.

Or maybe a passport for America.

But if he thought that,...

..then he was wrong.

(MUSIC OF "ST. HELENA" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) The selected destination has been called...

..the place furthest away from any other place in the world:...

..the island of St Helena,...

..in the middle of the Atlantic, almost 2,000 km from the African coast.

(Irons) A place from which no escape could be conceived.

(Irons) Thirty-five years earlier, a boy at the Military Academy,...

..studying England's colonial possessions,...

..had circled St Helena and written the words:...

.."tiny island".

(Migliorini, in Italian) Someone describes it as an Atlantic islet,...

..more or less at the height of the Tropics, quite pleasant.

(Migliorini, in Italian) Napoleon hears these descriptions and is a little encouraged.

(Migliorini, in Italian) When he sees it for the first time, however,...

..it turns out to be a hostile place and difficult to live in due to the climate,...

..which is normally very humid and Napoleon will indeed fall ill as a result of it.

(in Italian) And then the volcanic rock creates cliffs,...

..the vegetation is not what you would call hospitable,...

..but is rather a vegetation that ends with large wooded ravines...

..that fill the craters of the volcanic island.

(Migliorini, in Italian) So it is more a kind of door to Hell.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Irons) St Helena was a damp place. Napoleon's playing cards had to be dried out in an oven.

(Irons) The island was infested with mice, termites and beetles.

(Irons) The English military kept his house in the village of Longwood...

..under constant surveillance.

(Irons) Napoleon died at 5.49...

..in the afternoon on 5th May 1821.

(Irons) Like his father before him, he had stomach cancer,

..although poisoning was suspected.

(MUSIC OF "NAPOLEON FOREVER" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, DE MAXIMY)

(Irons) He was buried anonymously...

..because of a disagreement:...

..the English wanted "Bonaparte" inscribed on the tombstone,...

..the French wanted "Napoleon", the imperial name.

(MUSIC OF "NAPOLEON FOREVER" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, DE MAXIMY)

(Irons) On 15th December 1840, Napoleon's remains returned to France.

(Irons) Thousands of people were there to welcome his coffin crying:...

.."Vive l'Empereur!"

(Irons) An imposing mausoleum was later constructed for him at the Hotel des Invalides.

(Irons) "I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine", he said,...

.."among the French people I have so dearly loved".

(MUSIC OF "JE SUIS NAPOLEON" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Irons) There are some other ashes in a side crypt.

(Irons) They are the partial remains of the King of Rome,...

..son of Napoleon and Marie Louise,...

..who had died in Vienna at the Court of his Habsburg grandfather.

(Irons) Adolf Hitler brought them to Paris in 1940,...

..his way perhaps of paying homage to collaborationist France.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

As the news of Napoleon's death swept through Europe,...

..one of Italy's greatest writers, Alessandro Manzoni,...

..composed an ode entitled "5th May".

A poem that reflects on human frailty and divine mercy,...

..translated into German a year later by Goethe.

The manuscript can be found here,...

..at the Braidense National Library.

(Irons) It starts as follows:...

.."He is no more."

"Bereft of breath."

"He is dead."

Contemplating the last hours of a man who had conquered an entire continent,...

..a man who had savoured both victory and defeat, escape and exile,...

..the world remained resoundingly silent.

(Irons) Manzoni in his poem imagines him on Saint Helena,...

..battling it out with his memories in a vain attempt to record them.

(Irons) The great Italian writer couldn't have known that just two years later...

..this book, "Memorial of St Helena", would be published,...

..that the legend of Napoleon would remain with us...

..forever.

(MUSIC OF "JE SUIS NAPOLEON" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

"We will write our memoirs. Yes, we will have to work."

"Even work is the sickle of time."

"After all, my overriding principle has always been..."

"..that our destiny is in our own hands."

"So, let mine be fulfilled!"

It would be his last masterpiece,...

..a bestseller that continues to be read two centuries after his death,...

..turning his final defeat...

..into a final victory.

(MUSIC OF "JE SUIS NAPOLEON" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(Ferrero, in Italian) What is the message that enchanted the bourgeoisie of the 19th century?

(Ferrero, in Italian) It was very simple and direct: "You too,..."

"..middle class people if you have ability, determination, courage,..."

"..if you will with all your might, you can become like me."

(Ferrero, in Italian) The descendants don't care at all...

..who made a million deaths, they don't care about the suffering,...

..everything that has happened in these 20 overwhelming and even thunderous years,...

..what remains is the image of this omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent man...

..who was utterly self-made.

(in Italian) The myth remains, the hero remains.

(MUSIC OF "JE SUIS NAPOLEON" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

Yes we can!

This attitude has become the mantra of our modern democratic societies.

An unknown youth from the outskirts of Europe...

..who would rise to become an Emperor, then disappear amid the Atlantic...

..before finally taking his place among...

..the great immortals.

(MUSIC OF "JE SUIS NAPOLEON" BY ANZOVINO, PELLICCIONI, MECOZZI, MONDAINI)

(MUSIC OF THE "TE DEUM")

(MUSIC OF THE "TE DEUM" IN THE BACKGROUND)