Ridley Scott’s epic Napoleon is now just a week away from release and is currently receiving positive reviews, with particular praise reserved for Joaquin Phoenix’s lead performance. The historic icon’s life story has already made it to the big screen on multiple occasions, but one fascinating story relating to him that probably won’t be covered anytime soon is the tale of Napoleon’s boner part.
That’s right folks, we’re talking about the surprisingly complex story of Napoleon’s penis, and this goes places you may not expect!
The death of Napoleon
After being defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon realized the French legislature and people had turned against him and surrendered to the British a month later. His request for political asylum in England was refused and he was sent to the remote island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
Seven years later, in 1821, he died on the island at the age of 51, with current medical opinion that he was suffering from gastric cancer. He was buried on Saint Helena, but was exhumed in 1840 and returned to France. To this day you can visit his grand tomb at Les Invalides in Paris. But not all of him made it there…
Immediately after this death, an autopsy was conducted by Francesco Antommarchi, during which Napoleon’s penis was cut off. The story goes that the doctor had been bribed to do this by Napoleon’s chaplain, Ange Vignali, after the former Emperor had insulted him by calling him “impotent.”
Whatever the real reason Vignali departed Saint Helena to his home in Corsica, with Napoleon’s penis concealed about his person.
The further adventures of Napoleon’s penis
It remained in Ange Vignali’s possession right up until he was killed in “a bizarre blood vendetta.” It was passed down through the Vignali family, who kept it until 1916 when it was sold to London-based antiquarian bookseller Maggs Bros Ltd, responsible for some of the most expensive book purchases in history.
In 1924 Maggs Bros Ltd sold it on to the American collector of rare books and manuscripts Abraham Rosenbach, who transported it across the Atlantic to New York City. Clearly recognizing the historic value, Rosenbach had Napoleon’s penis mounted “in a case of blue Morocco and velvet” and is said to have brought it out at dinner parties to stimulate conversation (which we imagine went something like “wow, that’s Napoleon’s penis!”). Rosenbach even loaned this prized possession to the Museum of French Art in New York, where for the first and only time in its history it was exhibited to the public.
A reviewer attending described it as looking like a “maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace” and an attendee compared it to “a shriveled eel.” It was judged to be “very small” at about one-and-a-half inches long, though to be fair it was over a century old at this point.
Napoleon’s penis was then sold by Rosenbach to lawyer Donald Hyde, who kept it in his possession until his death. Hyde’s wife, perhaps understandably, wanted to be rid of the morbid member and gave it to bookseller John F. Fleming.
Somewhere around this time, it was offered to the French government, potentially to be reunited with Napoleon himself at Les Invalides. The French said “non,” and according to Napoleon penis historian Tony Perrotet, “They didn’t touch the penis. They wouldn’t have anything to do with it.” Fleming sold it to a collector named Bruce Gimelson, who eventually sold it to urologist John K. Lattimer in 1977 for $3,000.
The man who respected Napoleon’s penis
Lattimer would go on to amass a bizarre collection of artifacts at his home in Englewood, New Jersey. These included medieval armor, dinosaur eggs, World War II machine guns, and sketches by Adolf Hitler. More morbidly he also owned one of the two cyanide capsules the Nazi general Herman Göring used to kill himself, the blood-stained collar Abraham Lincoln was wearing when he was shot, and upholstery from the car JFK was assassinated in.
But, above all else, Lattimer prized Napoleon’s penis. He was upset that it had historically been treated as “an object of derision” and refused to exhibit it, placing it in a briefcase and keeping it safely under his bed. Lattimer maintained his guardianship over Napoleon’s penis for the rest of his life, fearful that observers would poke fun at it.
Lattimer died in 2007 and the penis was inherited by his daughter, Evan Lattimer. She has maintained her father’s strict custodianship over Napoleon’s penis to this day and has refused all permission to film or photograph it, saying:
“Dad believed that urology should be proper and decent and not a joke.”
Just ten people have ever seen it in the flesh, one being the aforementioned Perrottet, who described it thusly:
“An amazing thing to behold. There it was: Napoleon’s penis sitting on cotton wool, very beautifully laid out, and it was very small, very shriveled, about an inch and a half long. It was like a little baby’s finger,”
We are now two centuries on from the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, but this very personal part of him remains resident in a box in New Jersey. Maybe one day it will be returned to its original owner, but somehow we suspect that the saga of Napoleon’s well-travelled penis is far from over.
Published: Nov 15, 2023 12:22 pm