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Napoleon

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:5,000.00 - 6,000.00 USD
Napoleon

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Auction Date:2015 Mar 11 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Ornate manuscript vellum DS in French, signed “Napol,” one page, 20 x 13, February 18, 1813. Document conferring the title of Baron of the Kingdom of Italy onto Luigi Ignazio Albergati Capacelli. In part (translated): “Having reserved for Us…the right to give the titles that we would think convenient to those among our subjects who distinguished themselves for services rendered to the State: and knowing the zeal and fidelity that our dear and beloved Mr. Luigi Albergati showed us in several occasions…We allow the said Mr. Albergati to qualify and call himself Baron of Our Kingdom in any documents and contracts, in court as anywhere else…He may wear everywhere his Armorial Bearings and Livery We assign him with the present: The Baron Albergati wears a rectangle above divided in two, the first blue with a silver stripe bordered in red, second of the Barons taken from the administrative Bodies which is red with a wall bordered in silver. Below an armed porcupine. Above all a large electoral form of black velvet with squirrel fur hem with silver feather holding three white feathers, accompanied by two silver leaves in the two sides of the shield and lined in green." A beautifully hand-painted rendering of the crest of the newly-minted title, as described in the document, is present in the lower right. Attractively matted and framed to an overall size of 26 x 19.5. Intersecting folds and scattered creases and soiling, otherwise fine condition.

Albergati was a member of the Bologna city council and the owner of the Villa Albergati a Zola, an important seventeenth-century palace that Napoleon used as his residence while in Italy beginning in 1805. Bologna first fell to Napoleon's forces in 1796 and it became the capital of the short-lived Cispadane Republic. In 1805, Napoleon took up residence at the Villa Albergati and was impressed enough with the palace to begin plans to modernize the building, though these never came to fruition. Likely due to his importance in Bolognese civic affairs, and the fact that his family was the owner of the Villa Albergati, Napoleon believed it prudent to bestow this title. Oversized.