• Submitted by: admin
• Arts and Culture
• 12 / 21 / 2006

In one of the salons of the patrimonial institution, the permanent-researcher and professor from the University of Havana, who was a huge academic career and history production, declared that Napoleon is one of the most studied historical figures; "he is a meteor in the heaven of history, a cultural reference of humanity," he pointed out, and he commented facets of the personality of the man who from a simple Jacobin officer became the emperor of the French people, with just 34 years of age.

In another moment of his conference Torres Cuevas dealt with the topic of the strong French component in Cuban culture, despite the fact that the Caribbean island was never a colony of than European country; "America was not in Napoleons project," he said, before he demonstrated then that the French mark is nonetheless represented in Cuba through different manifestations of art, such as painting, architecture and literature. "It is not a coincidence that Victor Hugo is one of the most read writers by the Cuban people," he said. He added that that understanding is reciprocal, and he gave the example that he found a house called Villa Clara-the name of one of the fourteen Cuban provinces-in a remote place in France.

"The fact that in a Caribbean Spanish-speaking island, which is not directly related with the Napoleon period, there is a Napoleonic Museum, turns out to be something exotic and charming," he highlighted. Afterwards, he praised the library of that patrimonial installation, in his opinion a still un-explored treasure, which includes about four thousand titles about Bonaparte, its funds belong to the Cuban-Italian politician Orestes Ferrara y Marino, the owner of the property where Museum is found and to Julio Lobo, the owner of the most part of the collection, obtained by the landowner in auctions.

Classified as one of the most important five in the world and the only one of its kind specialized in Empire Art in the island, the Napoleonic Museum was born on December 1st, 1961, in an impressive mansion that was build between 1926 and 1929, as an imitation of a Florence Renaissance palace of the 16th century. It treasures more than seven thousand four hundred pieces of art work, of category I, which includes objects of the time of Napoleon and others that belonged to the emperor of the French or that were related to his life; it is said that one of the most interesting pieces is the mask of Napoleon Bonaparte that was brought to Cuba by its author, doctor Francesco Antommarchi, who was the leading doctor of Napoleon until his death. For something more than a year, this museum, which can be found in the San Miguel street, number 1159 and Ronda, belongs to the network of more than forty museums and cultural institutions of the Office of the City Historian, with a wide socio-cultural program.

Source: Cubarte