Biography
Bonaparte was the son of Lucien Bonaparte and Alexandrine de Bleschamp, and nephew of Emperor Napoleon. He was raised in Italy. On 29 June 1822, in Brussels, he married his cousin Zénaïde. Soon after the marriage, the couple left for Philadelphia to live with Zénaïde's father, Joseph Bonaparte. Before leaving Italy, Carlo had already discovered a warbler new to science, the Moustached Warbler, and on the voyage he collected specimens of a new storm-petrel. On arrival in the United States, he presented a paper on this new bird, which was later named after Alexander Wilson.
Bonaparte then set about studying the ornithology of the United States and updating Wilson's American Ornithology, and the revised edition was published between 1825 and 1833. In 1824 Bonaparte tried to get the then unknown John James Audubon accepted by the Academy of Natural Sciences, but this was opposed by the ornithologist George Ord.
At the end of 1826, Bonaparte and his family returned to Europe. He visited Germany, where he met Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar, and England, where he met John Edward Gray at the British Museum, and renewed his acquaintance with Audubon. In 1828 the family settled in Rome. In Italy he was the originator of several scientific congresses, and lectured and wrote extensively on American and European ornithology and other branches of natural history. Between 1832 and 1841, Bonaparte published his work on the animals of Italy, Iconografia della Fauna Italica. He had also published Specchio Comparativo delle Ornithologie di Roma e di Filadelfia (Pisa, 1827), presenting a comparison between birds of the latitude of Philadelphia and Italian species. He created the genus Zenaida, after his wife, for the Mourning Dove and its relatives.
In 1849 he was elected to the Roman Assembly and participated in the creation of the Roman Republic. According to Jasper Ridley, when the Assembly convened for the first time: "When the name of Carlo Bonaparte, who was a member for Viterbo, was called, he replied to the roll-call by calling out Long live the Republic!" (Viva la Repubblica!). He participated in the defense of Rome against the 40,000 French troops sent by his cousin Louis Napoleon. He left Rome after the Republican army was defeated in July 1849. He landed at Marseilles but was ordered to leave the country by Louis Napoleon. He reaffirmed his political beliefs the following year in naming Wilson's Bird-of-paradise (Cicinnurus respublica) in honor of the republican idea.
He travelled to England, attending the meeting of the British Association in Birmingham. He then visited Sir William Jardine in southern Scotland. Charles then began work on preparing a methodical classification of all the birds in the world, visiting museums across Europe to study the collections. In 1850, he was allowed to return to France, and he made Paris his home for the rest of his life. In 1854, he became director of the Jardin des Plantes. In 1855, he was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He published the first volume of his Conspectus Generum Avium before his death, the second volume being edited by Hermann Schlegel.
Read more about this topic: Charles Lucien Bonaparte
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