ANTOMMARCHI, FRANCESCO, a well-known physician and native of Corsica, was born in the second half of the 18th century. He owes his celebrity almost entirely to his intimacy with Napoleon Bonaparte during the exile of the latter in St. Helena. In 1818, lie was induced to leave Florence, where he held the office of anatomical dissector in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova of Florence, and to become private physician to the banished emperor. There was at first little cordiality between the two; but subse quently I3onaparte conceived a high regard for his countryman, and at his death left hint 100,000 francs. In 1821, A. returned to Europe, and in 1826 published at Paris Les Derniers .]foments de Napoleon, a work which has been very extensively read. He now became involved in a dispute with the heirs of Mascagni—his old anatomical professor— regarding certain anatomical plates which lie announced as on the eve of publication lie heirs affirmed that A's. lithographed drawings were mere copies from the plates of
Maseagni, and the controversy went on briskly for some time, till Paris grew tired of it, when it gradually died away and was forgotten. On the breaking out of the Polish revolution, A. departed for Warsaw, where lie received the appointment of general inspector of military hospitals. He soon returned to Paris, where be published a cast of Napoleon's head, which lie affirmed to have taken when the emperor was on his death bed. This declaration again involved him in a hot dispute with the phrenologists, who were not satisfied with the conformation of the cranium, and therefore cast suspicions— some of them apparently not altogether ill founded—on the veracity of A's. statements. Harassed by the attacks of his adversaries, and sick Of further controversy, A., about 183G, resolved to emigrate to America. He d. at San Antonio, in Cuba, on the 3d of April 1838.