Joseph Fesch
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Joseph Cardinal Fesch, Prince of the Empire (3 January 1763 – 13 May 1839) was a French priest and diplomat, who was the maternal half-uncle of
Born in
He was Napoleon's most important diplomat in regard to Pope Pius VII, but Napoleon's relationship with his uncle deteriorated as his relationship with the Pope soured. Nevertheless, Napoleon remained loyal to his uncle. Fesch wed his nephew to Joséphine de Beauharnais in Paris in 1804, the day before Bonaparte was crowned as Emperor of the French,[1] in 1810 he wed Napoleon to Marie Louise of Austria, and in 1811 baptized the Emperor's son Napoleon II.
After the end of the French Empire in 1815, he was banished from France in 1815, like the rest of the Imperial House. He relocated to Rome with his half-sister Laetitia, and took up residence at the Palazzo Falconieri, dedicating himself to art and to beneficence.
Biography
Fesch was born at
Thereafter he shared the fortunes of the Bonaparte family in the intrigues and strifes which ensued. Drawn gradually into espousing the French cause against
Appointed by Napoleon on 4 April 1803 to succeed
Subsequent events damaged his prospects. In the course of the years 1806-1807 Napoleon came into sharp collision with the pope on various matters both political and religious. Fesch sought in vain to reconcile them. Napoleon was inexorable in his demands, and Pius VII refused to give way where the discipline and vital interests of the church seemed to be threatened. The emperor several times rebuked Fesch for what he thought to be weakness and ingratitude. It is clear, however, that the cardinal went as far as possible in counselling the submission of the spiritual to the civil power. For a time he was not on speaking terms with the pope; and Napoleon recalled him from Rome.
Affairs came to a crisis in the year 1809, when Napoleon issued at
In the year 1811 the emperor convoked a national council of Gallican clerics for the discussion of church affairs, and Fesch was appointed to preside over their deliberations. Here again, however, he failed to satisfy the inflexible emperor and was dismissed to his diocese. The friction between uncle and nephew became more acute in the following year. In June 1812 Pius VII was brought from his first place of detention, Savona, to Fontainebleau, where he was kept under surveillance in the hope that he would give way in certain matters relating to the Concordat and in other clerical affairs. Fesch ventured to write to the aged pontiff a letter which came into the hands of the emperor. His anger against Fesch was such that he stopped the sum of 150,000 florins which had been accorded to him.
The disasters of the years 1812-1813 brought Napoleon to treat Pius VII more leniently and the position of Fesch thus became for a time less difficult. However, on the first abdication of Napoleon (11 April 1814) and the restoration of the
Coat of arms
As a member of the imperial family of France, he was given a new coat of arms based on the imperial coat of arms of France (cf. House of Bonaparte). The Faesch family traditionally used a different coat of arms.
Paintings owned by Fesch
The Fesch collection included almost 16,000 paintings (not all at the same time). The core was Italian works of the Renaissance to the 18th century, but Fesch also had a number of
- National Gallery, London
- Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, Leonardo da Vinci, Vatican Museums
- NGA, Washington, who also have a Nativity by Perino del Vaga, Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak by Jan Boeckhorst and The Larder by Antonio Maria Vassallo.[5]
- Mond Crucifixion, Raphael, National Gallery, London
- Portrait of a Seated Woman with a Handkerchief, now attributed to Carel Fabritius rather than Rembrandt, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
- Adoration of the Magi, Bramantino, National Gallery, London, who have other works including a Philippe de Champaigne Vision of St Joseph, a Vincenzo Foppa & a Botticelli.
- Last Judgement Fra Angelico, in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.
- The Broken Mirror, Greuze, Wallace Collection, London, who have another Greuze, an Anthony van Dyck Virgin and Child, a Philippe de Champaigne Annunciation, and a Hobbema.
- Hunting in the Lagoon, Getty Museum, originally part of the same composition as his Two Venetian Ladies
- Saints George and Dominic, side panels from an altarpiece, Carlo Crivelli, Metropolitan Museum of Art.[6]
- Lamentation of Christ, Scipione Pulzone, MMA.
- The Visitation, Sebastiano del Piombo, Duke of Northumberland's collection at Alnwick Castle.
Honours
- Great Eagle (Grand Cross) of the Legion of Honour.[7]
- Knight of the Order of the Golden Spur (1802)
- Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece (1805)
See also
Notes
- ^
Compare: Bingham, Denis Arthur, ed. (1884). A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon: With Explanatory Notes. Cambridge Library Collection - European History. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press (published 2010). p. 5. ISBN 9781108023429. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
[I]t is still a matter of doubt whether Napoleon and Josephine were ever married at the altar. There is not a scrap of evidence to prove it. The official account relates that on the eve of the coronation the Pope refused to officiate unless the Emperor made Josephine his wife, the Church not recognising the[ir] civil marriage. To avoid a scandal Napoleon consented, and the religious ceremony was secretly performed at the Tuileries by Cardinal Fesch, with the consent of the Pope, and in the presence of Duroc, Berthier, and Talleyrand, on the night of the 1st December, 1804.
- ^ Goyau, Catholic Encyclopedia.
- ^ Cardinal Fesch and the art of his time, exhibition Archived 2011-09-28 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Standard STAR Web Error Page".
- ^ NGA Fesch Archived 2009-05-09 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Carlo Crivelli - Saint George - The Met". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum.
- ^ Almanach Du Département de L'Escaut Pour L'an 1809-1815, Volume 1;Volume 1809. lA.B. Stéven. p. 6.
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fesch, Joseph". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 292–293.The following references are given for the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article on Joseph Fesch:
- Jean Baptiste Lyonnet, Le Cardinal Fesch (2 vols., Lyon, 1841)
- Louis Gustave Ricard, Le Cardinal Fesch (Paris, 1893)
- Henri Welschinger, Le Pape et l'empereur, 1804–1815 (Paris, 1905)
- Frédéric Masson, Napoleon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897–1900)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the - Pierre-Louis-Théophile-Georges Goyau (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).
External links
Media related to Joseph Fesch at Wikimedia Commons
- The Age of Napoleon, which includes an entire chapter on Fesch
- Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. .
- Spencer Napoleonica Collection Archived 5 December 2012 at archive.today at Newberry Library