Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte is an offstage historical presence whose wars alter the conditions of trade and sovereignty in the world of the Florios. He is not developed through personal scenes; instead, his importance is registered in the departures of foreign forces, the contraction of commerce, and the political rearrangements that leave Sicily under renewed Bourbon control.

Historical Presence and Commercial Aftermath

The novel connects the end of the war with Napoleon to a sudden change in Palermo’s commercial fortunes. Ignazio Florio observes that British merchant Benjamin Ingham is receiving far fewer orders than before. Vincenzo attributes the collapse to the departure of the British, saying that commerce died when they left and that they abandoned the Sicilians to deal with the Neapolitans. The episode places Napoleon’s legacy not in a battlefield account but in the vacuum left behind when wartime alliances and commercial arrangements disappear.

That disruption bears on a city whose prosperity depends on the movement of goods. Spices travel through long chains of carriers, ships, and ports, and their cost rises with each leg of the journey. By the early nineteenth century, British and French merchants have become major suppliers, while Palermo’s aromatari organize themselves as a guild. The Florios participate in this shifting trade: their warehouse in the Palazzo Steri complex holds goods arriving through British and French colonial routes, including spices from India and French colonies. The postwar reversal therefore threatens more than a single merchant’s orders; it unsettles a commercial system built around international access and foreign shipping.

Bourbon Restoration and Sicilian Division

The narrative places Napoleon’s era against Sicily’s struggle to preserve political autonomy. After the Bourbon return, Sicilian resistance is weakened by divisions among the island’s cities: Palermo resents Messina, Trapani sides with Messina against Palermo, and Catania acts in its own interest. The account stresses the contradiction between Sicily’s claim to possess the world’s oldest parliament and its inability to agree on how to use it. The cities share resentment toward the mainland beyond the Strait of Messina, but that common hostility does not overcome their rivalries.

The consequences are institutional as well as political. From December 1816, Neapolitans administer state offices and customs and command the military. Palermo loses power and independence, while heavier taxes, trade restrictions, and new constraints compound the already severe economic slowdown. The Florios’ experience of business stagnation thus unfolds within a transfer of authority: customs and commerce are no longer governed on terms set in Palermo.

Revolt, Defeat, and the Limits of Independence

In 1820, hostility toward Bourbon rule grows among the Palermo aristocracy and secret societies, which blame the monarchy for extinguishing Sicilian ambitions by uniting the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily and revoking the 1812 constitution. A revolt on June 15 forces Prince Francesco to take refuge in Naples and leads to the re-establishment of the Sicilian Parliament and constitution. On the mainland, a July insurrection led by General Guglielmo Pepe also forces Ferdinand I to accept a constitution.

The Sicilian government’s aim of restoring the Kingdom of Sicily brings it into conflict with the Bourbons, who exploit the discord among Palermo, Messina, and Catania to suppress the revolt. The monarchy is restored in November. In March 1821, Prussia, Russia, and Austria intervene at Ferdinand I’s request; Austrian forces enter Naples on March 24 and restore the king to the throne. They remain until 1827, when Francesco I succeeds in removing them. The sequence makes clear how briefly constitutional restoration holds and how readily local division, royal power, and foreign intervention frustrate Sicilian self-government.

Narrative Significance

Napoleon Bonaparte’s significance lies in the historical pressures surrounding his name rather than in a narrated personal arc. His wars form part of the background to a changing commercial order; their aftermath leaves Palermo exposed to the consequences of British withdrawal and renewed Neapolitan authority. The novel brings political history down to material particulars—orders lost, customs controlled, taxes raised, and trade constrained—so that the shift of power is felt in the Florios’ business as well as in Sicily’s institutions. Napoleon is one point in that larger history of upheaval, while the island’s internal divisions help determine what follows.