Bonaparte

or Buonaparte, a noted Italian family. There were several branches, one of which established itself in the island of Corsica and has been rendered famous by the achievements of Napoleon Bonaparte. A branch of the Bonaparte family resides in Baltimore, Maryland. The story of the origin of the family name from Mons Boni is told well by T. A. Trollope in his History of the Commonwealth of Florence:

About four miles to the south of Florence, on an eminence overlooking the valley of the little river Greve, and the then bridle-path leading towards Siena and Rome, there was a very strong castle, called Monte Boni, Mons Boni, as it is styled in sundry deeds of gift executed within its walls in years 1041, 1085, and 1100, by which its lords made their peace with the Church, in the usual way, by sharing with churchmen the proceeds of a course of life such as needed a whitewashing stroke of the Church's office. A strong castle on the road to Rome, and just at a point where the path ascended a steep hill, offered advantages and temptations not to be resisted; and the lords of Monte Boni "took toll" of passengers. But, as Villani very naively says, "the Florentines could not endure that another should do what they abstained from doing." So as usual, they sallied forth from their gates one fine morning, attacked the strong fortress, and razed it to the ground. All this was, as we have seen, an ordinary occurrence enough in the history of young Florence. This was a way the burghers had. They were clearing their land of these vestiges of feudalism, much as an American settler clears his ground of the stumps remaining from the primeval forest. But a special interest will be admitted to belong to this instance of the clearing process, when we discover who those noble old freebooters of Monte Boni were. The lords of Monte Boni were called, by an easy, but it might be fancied ironical, derivation from the name of their castle "Buoni del Monte"--the Good Men of the Mountain;--and by abbreviation, Buondelmonte, a name which we shall hear more of anon in the pages of this history. But when, after the destruction of their fortress, these Good Men of the Mountain became Florentine citizens, they increased and multiplied; and in the next generation, dividing off into two branches, they assumed, as was the frequent practice, two distinctive appellations; the one branch remaining Buondelmonti, and the other calling themselves Buonaparte. This latter branch shortly afterward again divided itself into two, of which one settled at San Miniato al Tedesco, and became extinct there in the person of an aged canon of the name within this century; while the other first established itself at Sarzana, a little town on the coast about half-way between Florence and Genoa, and from thence at a later period transplanted itself to Corsica; and has since been heard of.