Villa di San Martino (Museo nazionale delle residenze napoleoniche)

Villa di San Martino was the private counterpart to Napoleon's official residence on Elba: a summer house among the slopes outside Portoferraio, with Egyptian imagery, rooms associated with his Habsburg bride and a later neoclassical gallery devoted to his memory. It is now part of the Museo nazionale delle residenze napoleoniche.

Why it matters

When Napoleon arrived on Elba on 4 May 1814, affairs of state were conducted from the Palazzina dei Mulini by the sea, while San Martino became a country retreat. Shortly after his arrival, he bought property from the Manganaro family, including a rustic house he intended to transform. The project enlarged the house, refurbished its facade and added a hanging garden overlooking Portoferraio's roadstead. Antonio Vincenzo Revelli, painter to the Elban residences, decorated the interiors. The Galleria Demidoff, added by later owners below the villa, extends the complex's Napoleonic history.

What to notice

The piano nobile has eight rooms. An antechamber and rooms associated with Generals Drouot and Bertrand recall the men who accompanied Napoleon in exile. The Stanza del “Nodo d'Amore” commemorates his marriage to Marie-Louise of Habsburg-Lorraine. The Camera da letto di Napoleone and the studio lead to the Sala Egizia, decorated with trompe-l'oeil scenes of rural Egypt, papyrus-shaped columns, painted hieroglyphs and an octagonal basin beneath a zodiac.

The Galleria Demidoff is a separate, single-storey neoclassical hall conceived as a shrine to Napoleonic memorabilia. Its walls display graphic works including engravings, lithographs and etchings on Napoleonic subjects.

Context and history

After Napoleon left Elba during the Hundred Days, the villa remained with his heirs. In 1856 it was purchased by the Russian nobleman Anatolio Demidoff, an art collector who had married Napoleon's niece Mathilde Bonaparte. He commissioned a gallery for Napoleonic memorabilia. The Turini-De Micheli graphic collection, acquired by the Italian state in 1985, includes 230 engravings and 12 plates with Napoleonic subjects, from portraits of Napoleon and Joséphine to battle scenes and satire. A second collection was donated by Aldo Olschki, son of publisher Leo Samuele Olschki. The gallery now holds these prints, while the villa preserves its painted rooms from 1814–15. The complex is part of the Museo nazionale delle residenze napoleoniche, managed by the Ministry of Culture.