BONAPARTE, or BUONAPARTE, the name of a Corsican family now famous in history. It was spelt Buonaparte by the Em peror Napoleon's father and the Emperor him self till 1796, though the more usual, modern form also occurs in old Italian documents. Several families are mentioned as early as the 12th century who bore the name of Bonaparte, and took a position of some prominence in Italy. In 1122, for instance, a Bonaparte was banished from Florence as a Ghibelline. Cor rado Bonaparte is mentioned in 1170 and Jacopo Bonaparte in 1210 as knights of the Order of the Golden Spur. The office of podesta was held by Nordio Bonaparte in Parma in 1272, by Pietro Bonaparte in Padua 1285, and by Giovanni Bonaparte in Florence 1333. In 1250 a Bonaparte was syndic of As coli, and in 1440 Cesare Bonaparte was chosen as head of naval affairs at Sarzana. A Gio vanni Bonaparte is said to have married a niece of Pope Nicholas V in 1404, but this seems doubtful for chronological reasons. It is however certain that about 1454 Niccolo Bona parte was ambassador of this Pope to several courts, and vicar of the Holy See in Ascoli. Another Niccolo Bonaparte, professor at San Miniato in the 16th century, is stated to have been the author of the comedy 'La Vedova' (Florence 1568); and a work on the Sack of Rome in 1527 is attributed to the Tuscan Gia como or Jacopo Bonaparte, who was an eye witness of the event. The connection between
these different Bonapartes is by no means well established; yet in 1771 the relationship of the Corsican Bonapartes with the Florentine Bona partes was judicially recognized. In Corsica itself a Messire Bonaparte appears as witness to an act executed by Berengar II of Italy as early as 947, and it is therefore not improbable that the family originally emigrated from this island to the mainland, and that a branch of the Genoese line returned to their old home in the 16th century. From the time of Gabriel Bonaparte, who settled at Ajaccio in 1567 and took part in the naval expeditions against the Moors, the Bonapartes ranked as a patrician family of that town. In 1576 Girolamo Bona parte was elected deputy of Ajaccio in the senate of Genoa, and in 1614 Francesco was chosen captain of his native town. In 1757 Joseph, the grandfather of Napoleon I, re ceived a formal patent of nobility from the Grand Duke of Tuscany. About the middle of the 18th century there remained three male representatives of the family of Bonaparte at Ajaccio, the archdeacon Lucien Bonaparte, his brother Napoleon, and their nephew Charles I who became father of the Emperor Napoleon and of a numerous family of princes.