Showing 1-7 of 7 results
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Cathédrale de Ste-Marie
The Venetian-style Cathédrale de Ste-Marie , with its ochre facade, was built in the second half of the 16th century. Beside the west door is the font where a very small Napoleon was baptised. In the north aisle is Delacroix's painting of the Vierge au Sacré Coeur .
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Municipal Library
In the left wing of the Musée Fesch and entered via rue du Cardinal Fesch, Ajaccio's Municipal Library , built in 1868, merits a browse. The two lions guarding the entrance (yet another donation by Cardinal Fesch) are modelled on the beasts that stand watch over the tomb of Pope Clement XIII at St Peter's in Rome. Inside, within the 30m-long reading room, uniform leather-bound volumes stretching to the ceiling, wooden ladders and an 18m-long central table speak of serious-minded research.
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Musée A Bandera
Tucked away on a little side street, the Musée A Bandera provides an overview of Corsican history from its origins until WWII. Among the highlights are a diorama of the 1769 battle of Ponte Novo that confirmed French conquest of the island, a model of the port of Ajaccio as it was in the same perio, a proclamation by Gilbert Elliot.
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Musée du Capitellu
The Musée du Capitellu is a delightful little museum assembled by M. Paul Ottavi-Sampolo, its owner and curator. It provides a fascinating glimpse into the town's history through the eclectic paintings, porcelain, silverware and objets d'art, assembled over the years by one prominent Ajaccio family.
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Musée Fesch
Cardinal Fesch, whose bronze statue stares proprietorially over the courtyard, amassed over 16,000 paintings and objets d'art. The museum was built at his instigation to house the vast collection that he donated to the town in 1839. Musée Fesch has France's largest collection of Italian paintings outside the Louvre. Mostly the works of minor or anonymous 14th- to 19th-century artists, there are also canvases by Titian, Fra Bartolomeo, Veronese, Botticelli and Bellini.
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Musée National de la Maison Bonaparte
The Musée National de la Maison Bonaparte, the house in which Napoleon was born, got off to a bad start. Ransacked by Corsican nationalists in 1793, then requisitioned by the English from 1794 to 1796, it was later rebuilt by the emperor's mother. In the 19th century it became a place almost of cult worship, where the more ardent devotees would tear off a strip of wallpaper or prize away a tile as a relic.
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Salon Napoléonien
There the Emperor sits, enthroned like Christ in Majesty and surrounded by troops, clergy and courtiers, high on the ceiling fresco of the Salon Napoléonien within the town hall. Here too are sculptures and paintings of the imperial family, furniture from the 'return from Egypt' period, a Bohemian crystal light and a veritable mint of medals and coins struck in the emperor's honour.
Showing 1-7 of 7 results
