Note 12 — INTRODUCTION. (continued 2)

Also verified at the Royal Library, where the account of the sacking of Rome is deposited, but by Jacopo Buonaparte, and not Niccolo. Jacopo was a contemporary and an eye-witness of the event: his manuscript was printed for the first time at Cologne, in 1756; and the volume actually contains a genealogy of the Buonapartes, which is carried back to a very remote period, and describes them as one of the most illustrious houses of Tuscany.

The above genealogy presents a fact which is certainly of a very singular nature: it is that of the first Buonaparte having been exiled from his country as a Ghibeline. Was it, then, the destiny of his family, in all times, and at every epoch, that it must yield to the influence of the Guelfs!

The Cologne editor sometimes writes Buonaparte, and at others, Bonaparte.

This Signor Niccolo Buonaparte, named in the text as the historian, is only the uncle; he is, however, mentioned in the genealogy as a very distinguished man of letters, and as having founded the class of jurisprudence in thethe University of Pisa.