Painting himself Into history: Napoleon Bonaparte and the Fine Art of propaganda with Sylvia Sagona

There is so much more to Napoleon Bonaparte than the brilliant military general and nemesis of the Duke of Wellington. Before photography and the internet he knew that image was crucial to his grip on power and so took the best artists of the time with him on military campaigns and created the Musée Napoleon (Louvre] to exhibit the paintings. The city of Paris itself became his canvas with triumphal arches, Trajan-like columns, and avenues named after his victories. The ornate plates of Sèvres dinner sets celebrated his triumphs as did the luxury materials and Empire styles modelled by Josephine. This lecture will look beneath the counter-propaganda so skillfully established by the English.

Sylvia Sagona completed her post graduate studies of a Maitrise ès Lettres at the University of Aix en Provence where she lived and lectured at the university of Aix-Marseilles before taking up a lectureship in the Department of French and Italian studies at the University of Melbourne. She would regularly teach a course in Paris on 19th century art and literature in partnership with the French Centre d’ Etudes pédagogiques de Sèvres as well as a subject in Rome with the Università Roma 2 on how the Popes used the city layout for Christian propaganda.

Sylvia retired to create her own cultural travel company, Travels Through Time, taking studies tours through Europe until 2023. During this time, she worked with the French- German television channel Arte and SBS to create a documentary on the invention of the Department store. Sylvia has her own You Tube channel and continues to offer a lecture series in Hawthorn. This year she will be in Rome filming a You Tube series on notorious Roman women from Vestals Virgins to Fascist spies.