Napoleonic Museum

Brief Information

The Napoleonic Museum in Havana begins with an unexpected shift in scale: the history of the French emperor is gathered in the Cuban mansion La Dolce Dimora, built and decorated in the Florentine style. The permanent exhibition opened here in 1961 near the University of Havana, after the private collection of sugar magnate Julio Lobo had been nationalized and transferred to the National Museum of Fine Arts.

The main shift in perspective is connected with Napoleon's death mask. It became the first impetus for the formation of the collection, because it was brought to Cuba by the emperor's personal physician, Francesco Antommarchi, who later died in Santiago de Cuba. This is why the museum reads not as a distant retelling of European history, but as a place where a specific object explains why a Napoleonic collection ended up precisely in the New World.

What to Notice Right Away

You can compare the building itself with the objects inside it. The four-story former mansion provides an intimate setting for items connected not only with Napoleon's military biography, but also with the everyday life of his era: furniture, tableware, clothing, weapons, painting, and sculpture. The Florentine style of La Dolce Dimora matters as a contrast: a collection about France and empire is housed not in Napoleon's palace, but in the home of a Cuban politician, decorated with references to Italy.

Inside, the personal belongings are especially revealing: pistols, a bicorne hat, and the telescope Napoleon used on the island of Saint Helena. They are worth mentally comparing with the plans of major battles and the ceremonial portraits in the exhibition. In this way, one museum shows two perspectives at once: the public image of the emperor and the small objects through which his life appears closer and quieter. The death mask completes this sequence as the object that prompted the entire collection to begin forming.