Bonaparte was the son of
Lucien Bonaparte and
Alexandrine de Bleschamp. Lucien was a younger brother of
Napoleon I, making Charles the emperor’s nephew. Born in
Paris, he was raised in
Italy. On 29 June 1822, he married his cousin,
Zénaïde, in
Brussels. Soon after the marriage, the couple left for
Philadelphia in the United States to live with Zénaïde's father,
Joseph Bonaparte (who was also the paternal uncle of Charles). Before leaving Italy, Charles had already discovered a
warbler new to science, the
moustached warbler, and on the voyage he collected specimens of a new
storm-petrel. On arrival in the United States, he presented a paper on this new bird, which was later named after
Alexander Wilson. He and his wife resided in the Lake House in his father-in-law's
Point Breeze estate in
Bordentown, New Jersey. Bonaparte then set about studying the ornithology of the United States In 1824, Bonaparte tried to get the then unknown
John James Audubon accepted by the
Academy of Natural Sciences, but this was opposed by the ornithologist
George Ord who disliked Audubon's dramatic bird poses and considered him to be "a back-country upstart who romanticized his subject matter," according to the Audubon Galleries. At the end of 1826, Bonaparte and his family returned to Europe. He visited Germany, where he met
Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar, and England, where he met
John Edward Gray at the
British Museum, and renewed his acquaintance with Audubon. In 1828, the family settled in Rome. In Italy, he was the originator of several scientific congresses, and lectured and wrote extensively on American and European ornithology and other branches of natural history. In 1840, he became Prince of Canino and Musignano after his father's death and became involved in politics, particularly the anti-Austrian party that he joined in 1848. He did not, however, lose interest in his favourite studies for he organized and presided over several scientific congresses in Italy. In 1849, he was elected to the Roman Assembly and participated in the creation of the
Roman Republic. According to Jasper Ridley, when the Assembly convened for the first time: "When the name of Carlo Bonaparte, who was a member for Viterbo, was called, he replied to the roll-call by calling out
Long live the Republic!" (
Viva la Repubblica!). He participated in the defense of Rome against the 40,000 French troops sent by his cousin
Louis Napoleon. He left Rome after the Republican army was defeated in July 1849. He landed at Marseilles, but was ordered to leave the country by Louis Napoleon. He reaffirmed his political beliefs the following year in naming
Wilson's bird-of-paradise (
Cicinnurus respublica) in honor of the republican idea. He travelled to the United Kingdom, attending the meeting of the
British Association in
Birmingham. He then visited Sir
William Jardine in southern Scotland. Charles then began work on preparing a methodical classification of all the birds in the world, visiting museums across Europe to study the collections. In 1850, Bonaparte was extremely prolific and is responsible for coining Latin names for a large number of bird
species. As of August 2019, in the online list of birds maintained by
Frank Gill and David Donsker on behalf of the
International Ornithological Committee (IOC), Bonaparte is credited as the authority for 165
genera, 203 species and 262 subspecies. He was credited with
describing a rare Australian bird,
Menura alberti (Albert's lyrebird), although this was based on a technicality as English ornithologist
John Gould had previously described the bird but the supplement containing the description was published after Bonaparte had made reference to it. Lucien Charles Bonaparte died in
Paris at age 54. ==In film==