Glauco Lombardi Museum

EXHIBITION: NAPOLEON IN CARICATURE — Free Admission

Satire has always been one of the most effective means to capture the unbridgeable contradictions and inherent hypocrisies of political governance, even during the era of absolute rule, such as Napoleon Bonaparte’s Empire in France.

Widely loved and fiercely hated, l’Empereur aroused opposing and contrasting feelings among his contemporaries, which found their highest expression in caricature prints. Both in bitter enemy England and at home—despite strict censorship—prints commenting on current events with striking visual power and caustic commentary were produced almost daily. These offer fascinating insights into the daily life of the period, with production becoming particularly intense during the Hundred Days, when shifts on the throne and widespread opportunism brought rampant political turncoatism and party-switching to light.

The Glauco Lombardi Museum holds a collection of over fifty satirical prints, which is periodically displayed to the public to bring a smile—and provoke reflection—on the minor and major historical events and figures targeted in these works.

The exhibition “Napoleon in Caricature” will be open until Sunday, October 11, 2026, during regular museum opening hours. Admission is free, and the exhibition catalogue published by the Museum (on sale exclusively at the bookshop) is available to help visitors understand the many references to contemporary events and the ingenious ideas that made these prints a remarkably widespread and effective medium of communication.

This year’s edition is enriched by a full-scale modern reproduction of the grand Portrait of Napoleon in Coronation Robes created by François Gérard in 1805: a striking contrast between the official, celebratory iconography of the Emperor of the French and the numerous caricature prints that, conversely, poked fun at him.