Alliance with San Marino, Four Cannon Given, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Jean-Baptiste Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827, lettered "ALLIANCE AVEC LA RÉPUBLIQUE DE S.T MARIN" in open capitals above the image. The walled town of San Marino crowns its crag at the upper left. At the center Napoleon, on foot among his officers, points out a gun to an elderly white haired man on a dark horse, seen from behind. A field piece and its horse team stand at the left with a mounted hussar raising his arm behind them, a soldier adjusts a horse's harness at the right, and grenadiers are drawn up in line at the far right with riders beyond.

The caption below the image, in lithographic script, reads: "Napoléon fait présent à la république de quatre pièces de canon et ordonne qu'une provision de blé lui soit délivrée gratuitement." In English: Napoleon makes the republic a present of four pieces of cannon and orders that a supply of wheat be delivered to it free of charge.

The plate comes from the first volume of Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827 by the Lithographie royale de Jobard, the press of Marcellin Jobard. Its title page describes a text written by a society of men of letters from the new documents dictated and corrected at Saint Helena by Napoleon himself, illustrated with lithographed plates by Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after painters of the French school. Madou, a Belgian, later became known as a painter of genre scenes.

In February 1797, during the advance against the Papal States, Bonaparte sent the mathematician Gaspard Monge to San Marino to offer the friendship of the French republic. The little republic on Monte Titano accepted the friendship and the gifts of cannon and grain but declined an offer to enlarge its territory, and it kept its independence through the period.

The plate pairs a hill town view with a Napoleonic scene, and it suits a study or a hallway.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.