Italy. Italian States. Lucca & Piombino
Feliz Baciocchi & Elisa Boneparte (1806-1814)
1807 Silver 5 Franchi 36mm (24.71 grams) 0.900 Silver (0.7188 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 24.3, Dav-203, Pag-251
FELICE ED ELISA PP.DI LUCCA E PIOMBINO., Conjoined busts of Feliz and Elisa facing right.
PRINCIPATO DI LUCCA E PIOMBINO 5 FRANCHI, Wreath.

This was a town in Tuscany. It essentially maintained it’s independence until Napoleon gave the town to his sister, Elisa in 1805. This town was occupied by the Neopolitans in 1814. From 1817-1847 this town became the duchy of the queen of Etruria and then went on to become a division of Tuscany.

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Maria Anna (Marie Anne) Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi Levoy (3 January 1777 – 7 August 1820), Princesse Française, was an Italian ruler, Princess of Lucca and Piombino (1805-1814), Princess of Lucca (1805-1814), Grand Duchess of Tuscany (1809-1814) and Countess of Compignano by appointment of her brother Napoleon Bonaparte.

She was the fourth surviving child and eldest surviving daughter of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino. A younger sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, she had elder brothers Joseph and Lucien, and younger siblings Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jerome.

As Princess of Lucca and Piombino, then Grand Duchess of Tuscany, she became Napoleon’s only sister to possess political power. Their relations were sometimes strained due to her sharp tongue. Highly interested in the arts, particularly the theatre, she encouraged them in the territories over which she ruled.

Her separation from her husband in 1805 was seen favorably by Napoleon (though he soon rejoined her after her promotion to Lucca). On 19 March 1805, Napoleon awarded her the Principality of Piombino, which had been French property for some years and was of major strategic interest to Napoleon due to its proximity to Elba and Corsica. Felice and Élisa took the titles Prince and Princess of Piombino. In June 1805, the oligarchic Republic of Lucca, which had been occupied by France since late 1799, was made a principality and added to Felice and Élisa’s domain, their entry into Lucca and investiture ceremony following on 14 July 1805.

Felice Pasquale Baciocchi (18 May 1762 – 27 April 1841) was born at Ajaccio into a noble, but poor, Corsican family. He was second lieutenant in the French army in 1778, lieutenant in 1788, then Captain in 1794. Around 5 May 1797, he married Elisa Maria Bonaparte, Napoleon’s younger sister, in Marseilles.

Baciocchi was appointed Secretary to the Ambassador to the Spanish Royal Court in November 1800, and moved to Madrid, while his wife remained in France. Baciocchi was then promoted to army colonel in 1802, to Brigadier General in 1804, and to Major General in 1809. He was also made a Senator in 1804 and Imperial Prince in 1805. Thanks to his brother-in-law’s conquests, Baciocchi became Prince of Lucca, but without the associated power or the sovereign power, which really was exercised by his wife. He also serenely endured her infidelities.

Baciocchi was an avid amateur violinist, and studied with violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini for ten years while residing in Lucca and Florence. During this time, his wife and Paganini were also carrying on a romantic affair.

When Napoleon’s empire collapsed, he retired with Elisa to Trieste, then to Bologna after her death in 1820.

He died in that city on April 28, 1841.

The Republic of Lucca was a historic state of Italy, which lasted from 1160 to 1805 on the central Italian peninsula.

Within the Imperial Kingdom of Italy, the city of Lucca had been the residence of the Margraves of Tuscany. A certain autonomy was granted by a 1084 diploma issued by Emperor Henry IV, while on his Italian campaign during the Investiture Controversy with Pope Gregory VII. After the death of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany in 1115, the city began to constitute itself an independent commune, with a charter officially acknowledged by Margrave Welf VI in 1160. For almost 500 years, Lucca remained as an independent republic.

There were many minor provinces in the region between southern Liguria and northern Tuscany dominated by the Malaspina family. Tuscany in this time was a part of feudal Europe. The Divine Comedy by Dante includes many references to the great feudal families who had huge jurisdictions with administrative and judicial rights. Dante spent some of his exile in Lucca.

In 1273 and again in 1277 Lucca was ruled by a Guelph capitano del popolo (captain of the people) named Luchetto Gattilusio. In 1314, internal discord allowed Uguccione della Faggiuola of Pisa to make himself lord of Lucca.

Castruccio Castracani

The Lucchesi expelled him two years later, and handed over the city to another condottiere Castruccio Castracani, under whose rule it became a leading state in central Italy. Lucca rivalled Florence until Castracani’s death in 1328.

On 22 and 23 September 1325, in the battle of Altopascio, Castracani defeated Florence’s Guelphs. For this he was nominated by Louis IV the Bavarian to become duke of Lucca. Castracani’s tomb is in San Francesco in Lucca. His biography, by Machiavelli, is the author’s third famous book on political rule.

Occupied by the troops of Louis of Bavaria, the city was sold to a rich Genoese, Gherardino Spinola, and then seized by John, King of Bohemia (1296-1346). Then pawned to the Rossi of Parma, and by them it was ceded to Martino della Scala of Verona. Then sold to the Florentines, surrendered to the Pisans (1342-1368), and then nominally liberated by the emperor Charles IV (son of John, King of Bohemia) and governed by his vicar.

In 1408, Lucca hosted the convocation intended to end the schism in the papacy. Lucca managed, at first as a democracy, and after 1628 as an oligarchy, to maintain its independence – alongside with Venice and Genoa. It painted the word Libertas on its banners, until the French Revolution in 1789.^[1] Lucca was the third largest Italian city state with a republican constitution (“comune”) to remain independent over the centuries, as larger Venice and Genoa also did.

Early 19th century   Flag of the Jacobin State of Lucca (early 1799 and 1800-05). French democracy

The independent course of the Republic changed in February 1799, after the Second Coalition invasion (1799-1800), one of the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars.

French Jacobins created a centralized republic, the State of Lucca, with a democratic constitution. The constitution granted the government to an Executive Directory, with a bicameral legislature composed of the Council of Juniors and the Council of Seniors. The democracy did not last long.

Habsburg regency

Five months later in July 1799, after the French army retreated, forces of the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy conquered the city and established a Provisional government

French republic restored

In late 1800 the French army returned, reconquering Lucca. A new constitution for the State of Lucca was published in 1801, restoring the office of Consul of Justice as the president of the Executive branch, with a parliament called the Great Council.

Napoleonic principality

In 1805, the governance of Lucca was taken over by Napoleon, who merging the State of Lucca with the Principality of Piombino to become the Principality of Lucca and Piombino (1805-1809). He put his favored sister Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi in place to rule, his only female sibling to gain political power. Elisa began rule as the Duchess of Lucca and Princess of Piombino, based at Villa Reale di Marlia.