We receive a review of the book “Sette anni e un giorno” that Dr. Ilaria Monti, a well-known scholar of Elban history and pianist, was kind enough to write.
It was Easter days when I found a package in the letterbox accompanied by a rather lapidary message: “I would be grateful if you would like to read the contents critically. And if you deem it appropriate, in the edition, your Foreword of the Foreword would be appreciated. Luigi Maria Lucani”.
As much as I tried to remember, I didn’t know anyone by that name; a quick web search yielded negative results. Having looked at the first cover page, “He” appeared: here is the millionth “Napoleonade” again, I thought, seeing the famous image of the troubled Napoleon on St. Helena, also published on Wikipedia.
However, my curiosity was great and I began to read, from the introduction, to the chronicles reported by the Gazzetta di Firenze and the Monitore d’Etruria, of the “Seven years and a day” that passed between the landing of Emperor Napoleon I on Elba on 4 May 1814, and the death of General Bonaparte on St. Helena on May 5, 1821.
In these chronicles, interspersed with precious notes that Luigi Maria Lucani promptly adds, I met many characters who accompanied Napoleon to Elba and St. Helena, from Marshal Bertrand, to the Elbans Giacomo Mellini and Angelo Gentilini; then the various “jailers” of the Emperor: on Elba, the worldly Colonel Campbell and, on St. Helena, the rigorous General Lowe. There is also no shortage of journalistic “scoop” on Maria Walewska’s visit to Elba.
In the area surrounding the Napoleonic chronicles, the events of the general are narrated. Cesare de Laugier and those of the Ravenna countess Teresa Gamba, the last woman loved by Lord Byron, Countess G in Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. The great eruption of the Tambora volcano in April 1815 is also investigated and its possible relationships with the heavy rains that fell at Waterloo and contributed to Napoleon’s defeat.
The presence of Charles Darwin is also remembered on Saint Helena, who visited the island in 1831 and sat in the shade of the willow trees at the feet of which Napoleon had wanted his tomb.
The historical, political and cultural events of Elba – and Tuscany – are intertwined and re-proposed through the exposition of the contribution of enlightened administrators such as Count Vittorio Fossombroni and Cav. Giovanni Fabbroni, alongside artists such as Pietro Benvenuti and Antonio Canova; together with men of science such as the geologist Déodat de Dolomieu, the mineralist René Just Hauy, the geographer Arsène Thiébaut de Bernaud, the naturalists Ottaviano Targioni Tozzetti and Girolamo de’ Bardi.
And then the colorful “gossip” on the divorce between the King of the United Kingdom George IV and his wife Carolina, who came to Elba to visit what had been Napoleon’s residences, when the “Great Man” was still a prisoner in Sant’ Elena. Not forgetting the assassination of the Duke of Berry, nephew of Louis XVIII, at the hands of a solitary French Bonapartist who during Napoleon’s presence on Elba had tried, unsuccessfully, to find a job on the island.
Even the history of the small island of Pianosa has its role in the unfolding of events and is present in the news, and I won’t deny that it was the part that made me appreciate this book even more, which can be read in one sitting and leaves with a smile: because the mysterious Luigi Maria Lucani had the power to lightly immerse me in the atmosphere of the time, accompanying me to get to know its protagonists.
I was therefore happy that he asked me to write a “Foreword of the Foreword” which I close with these words: Wishing you a good read, I recommend remaining with a clear mind until the end, without asking too many questions about the identity of the Author. : it will be an even more exciting adventure into the past! On the other hand, it is the substance that counts!
The book will soon be presented on the Island of Elba, it can currently be found on: Ed. Youcanprint, https://store.youcanprint.it/sette-anni-e-un-giorno/b/628cdfa8-5465-53ad- ab0d-fe2b4d6b5d45 and also distributed on Amazon and many other online bookstores.
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