As a Boston University historian, I would like to open a public debate on the presence of Napoleon’s death mask in the main hall of Mugar Memorial Library. Is this appropriate?

We should not forget that according to many scholars (myself included), Napoleon ranks among the worst tyrants who have ever lived on this earth. He was a great conqueror — or, from a libertarian, classical-liberal point of view, a major assassin. Why is BU paying him such a tribute?

I live and work in the Italian Veneto region, which was deeply ravaged and plundered by young Napoleon in 1797. It was the unhappy year of the conquest of Venice and the end of a free and independent state that had lasted 11 centuries. Napoleon simply conquered it and sold it in exchange for central European territories, roughly the area of Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) today. His French Grand Army killed, raped and sacked villages. The French, among other things, stole an immense quantity of artwork that is still at the Louvre. He pioneered leading Nazi Party member Hermann Goering’s World War II leadership tactics, and I do not hesitate to put Napoleon in the same category of tyrants like Hitler and Stalin. Would BU freely exhibit a death mask of Adolf Hitler? Would students and faculty alike be outraged by this?

Anglo-Saxon historiography, once prone to celebrating Napoleon as the liberator of Europe, is now much more aware that he was a master in plundering and sacking for his own personal gain. Of the most recent scholarship touching upon this subject, I would like to refer to James McGregor’s book, Venice from the Ground Up. Several pages are devoted to description of the cruel treatment Napoleon reserved for Venice. Venice, however, was but a tiny fragment of all the free lands and states he conquered with a death toll well into the millions, abruptly bringing centuries of freedom and self-government to an end.

That said, I urge BU to open a public debate, involving historians, political scientists and all of the vast BU community, about keeping this mask at Mugar. If this is to remind us of the Louisiana Purchase and the other relations Napoleon entertained with the newly born United States, this can be done by reading just a simple handbook of history. If this is to remind all of us that even tyrants die, well, it also reminds us of the fact that millions died because of them. The victims’ faces and traits cannot be seen anymore; they were mostly poor people. If they are now faceless, why should we see the face of an assassin every time we enter a realm of peace and scholarship, a haven of scholarship par excellence?

Paolo Bernardini

Center for Italian and European Studies