Bonaparte House

The Maison Bonaparte, in Ajaccio

The Maison Bonaparte is the dwelling where Napoleon Bonaparte was born on 15 August 1769, today a national museum dedicated to the childhood of the emperor and to his family. The Ajaccio audio-guided tour stops here to evoke this emblematic place of the old town, where you dive into the universe of the eighteenth century at the cradle of the Napoleonic legend.

The birthplace of Napoleon

In this narrow street of the old town, a little crowd signals the approach of a highly symbolic place: the house of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is here that, on 15 August 1769, the future emperor of the French was born. The family dwelling of the Bonaparte is today a national museum that retraces the childhood and the adolescence of Napoleon. The interior plunges the visitor into the universe of the eighteenth century, with its furniture, its paintings and its period tapestries, carefully reconstituted. The rooms, very instructive, tell the history of the Bonaparte family, its origins, its rise and the legend that its descendants would become. You measure there the contrast between the condition of this family of the Corsican nobility and the prodigious destiny that awaited the child born within these walls. Just next door, the garden of the Maison Bonaparte, small and luxuriant, offers a pleasant pause in the shade of the mandarin trees. And very close, at the corner of the Rue Saint-Charles, a private museum offers a complementary multimedia discovery of the life of the emperor. A place of memory and of Napoleonic pilgrimage, the Maison Bonaparte is one of the high points of any visit of Ajaccio, that presents itself everywhere as the imperial town. A cradle of Napoleon and a museum of childhood, the Maison Bonaparte is a fine stop of the discovery of the town.

What to see

Here you discover the dwelling where Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769, become a national museum retracing the childhood and the adolescence of the emperor; the interior, with its furniture, its paintings and its eighteenth-century tapestries, tells the history of the Bonaparte family, and the small luxuriant neighbouring garden offers a pause in the shade of the mandarin trees. The Maison Bonaparte is an emblematic place of Ajaccio. It is a fine stop, to be explored on foot.

Practical information

The Maison Bonaparte lies on the Rue Saint-Charles, in the heart of the old town of Ajaccio, reachable on foot. It is a national museum that follows its own days and opening hours, variable according to the season; entry to the museum is subject to a fee, while the neighbouring garden is in free access. It is best to enquire before coming.

Why visit the Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio?

Because it is the dwelling where Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769, become a national museum retracing the childhood and the adolescence of the emperor; the interior, with its furniture, its paintings and its eighteenth-century tapestries, tells the history of the Bonaparte family, and a small luxuriant garden completes it.

Where is the Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio?

On the Rue Saint-Charles, in the heart of the old town of Ajaccio, in Corsica.