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Letizia Ramolino

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Nobile Maria Letizia Bonaparte née Ramolino (Marie-Lætitia Ramolino, Madame Mère de l'Empereur) (24 August, 1750 – 2 February, 1836) was the mother of Napoleon I of France.

She was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, to Nobile Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino (13 April, 1723 – 1755), Captain of Corse Regiments of Chivalry and Infantry in the Army of the Republic of Genoa, and wife Nobile Angela Maria Pietrasanta (circa 1725 – 1790). The distant cousins of the Ramolinos were a low rank of nobility in the Republic of Genoa. Letizia was not formally educated.

On 2/7 June, 1764, when she was 14, she married at Ajaccio Attorney Carlo Buonaparte. She bore 13 children, eight of whom survived infancy, and most of which survivors were made monarchs by Napoleon:

She was a harsh mother, and had a very down-to-earth view of most things. When most European mothers, even those in the upper class, bathed perhaps once a month, she had her children bathed every other day.

When France under the Ancien Régime took control of Corsica, in 1769, French became the national language, but Letizia never learned the tongue. When she was 35, her husband died of cancer. She was decreed "Madam, the Mother of His Majesty the Emperor" (Madame Mère de l'Empereur), Imperial Highness, on 18 May, 1804 or 23 March, 1805. She died of old age in Rome, in 1836, aged 86. By then she was nearly blind and had outlived her most famous son Napoleone by 15 years.

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