Bonaparte was the French form which the great Napoleon was the first to give to the original Italian name Buona-parte, borne by his family in Corsica. As early as the 12th and 13th centuries there were families of this name in Northern Italy, members of which reached some distinction as governors of cities (podesta), envoys, etc. But the connection between the Corsican Bonapartes and these Italian families is not clearly established, though probably the former descended from a Genoese branch of the family, which transplanted itself about the beginning of the 16th century to Corsica, an island then under the jurisdiction of Genoa. From that time the Buona-partes ranked as a distinguished patrician family of Ajaccio.
About the middle of the 18th century there remained three male representatives of this family at Ajaccio, viz. the archdeacon Luciano Bonaparte, his brother Napoleon, and the nephew of both, Carlo, the father of the Emperor Napoleon I. Carlo or Charles Buonaparte, born in 1746, studied law at Pisa University, and on his return to Corsica married Letizia Ramolino. He fought under Paoli for the independence of Corsica, but when further resistance was useless he went over to the side of the French, and was included by Louis XV amongst the 400 Corsican families who were to have rights in France as noble. In 1777 he went to Paris, where he resided for several years, procuring a free admission for his second son Napoleon to the military school of Brienne. He died in 1785 at Montpellier. By his marriage with Letizia Ramolino he left eight children: Giuseppe, or Joseph, king of Spain; Napoleon I, emperor of the French; Lucien, prince of Canino; Maria Anna, afterwards called Elise, princess of Lucca and Piombino, and wife of Prince Bacciocchi, Luigi, or Louis, king of Holland; Garlotta, afterwards named Marie Pauline, princess Borghese, Annunciata, afterwards called Caroline, wife of Murat king of Naples; and Girolamo, or Jerome, king of Westphalia. Research Bonaparte
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