, 1805 : 5 Franchi of
Principality of Lucca and Piombino, 1805, with the front side is the portrait of the couple Prince
Felix and Elisa Bonaparte Her separation from her husband in 1805 was seen favorably by Napoleon (though he soon rejoined her after her promotion to Lucca). On 19 March 1805, Napoleon awarded her the
Principality of Piombino, which had been French property for some years and was of major strategic interest to Napoleon due to its proximity to
Elba and
Corsica. Felice and Élisa took the titles "Prince and Princess of Piombino". In June 1805, the
oligarchic Republic of Lucca, which had been occupied by France since late 1799, was made a principality and added to Felice and Élisa's domain, their entry into Lucca and investiture ceremony following on 14 July 1805. Napoleon had contemptuously called
Lucca the "dwarf republic", due to its small size in terms of territory, but despite this it was a bulwark of political, religious, and commercial independence. Most of the power over Lucca and Piombino was exercised by Élisa, with Félix taking only a minor role and contenting himself with making military decisions. The inhabitants of Lucca, under French occupation and begrudging the loss of their independence, knew Élisa ironically as "
la Madame" and had little sympathy for Napoleon, Élisa, or their attempts to "Frenchify" the republic. Very active and concerned with administering the area, Élisa was surrounded at Lucca by ministers who largely remained in place right to the end of her reign. These ministers included her
Minister of Justice, Luigi Matteucci, her
Minister of the Interior and
Foreign Affairs, Francesco Belluomini (replaced in October 1807 by his son Giuseppe), her finance ministers, Jean-Baptiste Froussard (head of the cabinet) and, later, Pierre d'Hautmesnil (with the budget portfolio). She also set up a court and court etiquette inspired by those at the
Tuileries. On 31 March 1806 Napoleon withdrew Massa and Carrara from the
Kingdom of Italy to add to Élisa's possessions. Carrara was one of the biggest white marble suppliers in Europe and Élisa bolstered her prestige by establishing an
Académie des Beaux-Arts, designed to host the greatest sculptors and thus make Carrara an exporter of marble statues, which had a greater value than the raw marble. She also set up the Banque Élisienne to give financial aid to sculptors and workers on marble taxes. She reformed the clergy at Lucca and Piombino from May 1806, during which reforms she nationalised their goods and lands and closed down convents which did not also function as hotels or schools. She also carried out legislative reform in Lucca, producing laws inspired by the
Code Napoleon (such as the notable "Codice rurale del Principato di Piombino", issued on 24 March 1808) and producing a new penal code which was promulgated in 1807 and first reformed in 1810. In 1807 she set up the
Committee of Public Charity for distributing charity funds, made up of clergy and lay-people, and also instituted free medical consultations for the poor so as to eradicate the diseases then ravaging Lucca's population. She demolished Piombino's hospital to build a new one in the former monastery of Sant' Anastasia, with the new building opening in 1810, and also set up the
Casa Sanitaria, a dispensary in the town's port. On 5 May 1807, decreed the established of the "Committee for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts and Commerce" to encourage and finance the invention of new machines and new techniques to increase the territories' agricultural production and experimental plantations such as those of
mulberries at
Massa, where an École Normale de la Soie (Silk School) was created on 16 August 1808. Élisa also set up many teaching establishments in Lucca and, in 1809, a "Direction Générale de l'Instruction Publique" (General Department of Public Education). On 1 December 1807 she set up the "Collège Félix", the only boys' secondary school in the principality. For girls, she began by fixing set curricula for convents that also operated as schools, then set up a body of "dames d'inspection" to verify that these curricula were being adhered to. Teaching of girls aged 5 to 8 was made compulsory, though the laws were not always well applied. On 2 July 1807, Élisa founded the "Institut Élisa" within the limits of a former convent for noble-born girls, to produce well-educated and cultivated future wives. On 29 July 1812, Élisa set up an establishment for young poor girls, the "Congregazione San Felice", though this did not long outlive Élisa's fall. As with Napoleon, Élisa set up city improvement works in her territories, mainly to expand the princely palaces. These works were hotly contested, especially in Lucca, where the expansion of the princely palaces necessitated the demolition of the
Church of San Pietro in March 1807. She also razed an entire block in Lucca to build a piazza in the French style in front of her city residence (now the seat of the province and the prefecture). That block had included the Church of San Paolo with the venerated image of the
Madonna dei miracoli and so its demolition seriously affected the city's medieval architecture and almost sparked a revolt. At Massa, she demolished a cathedral on 30 April 1807. The palace at Lucca was fully redecorated and the gardens improved, with the creation of a botanical garden with a menagerie and aviary in 1811. She also began road construction, notably the "route Friedland" to link Massa and Carrara, with work beginning on 15 August 1807 but becoming delayed and only completed in 1820. Lucca's status as a
spa town was also bolstered by her improvement of the architecture and decor of the town's baths. She began construction of an aqueduct into Lucca in 1811, but this too was only completed after her fall. ==Grand Duchess of Tuscany==