I was born in 1763 in Ajaccio.

 

My father was a Swiss-born Franz Faesch and my mother was Napoleon's grandmother Angela Maria Pietrasanta.

 

Archbishop of Lyon in 1802, I was named a Cardinal in 1803, became French Ambassador to Rome in 1804, then a year later a French senator and count as well as Grand Almoner of France.

I was as well a boulimic collector.

 

Even if I left Corsica in 1793 for good, and if at the end of my life I took up residence in Rome as I was banished from France, I always felt concerned about my homeland and I had decided in 1806, to bequeath to Ajaccio my fabulous collection which counted more than 17,000 works of art including about 16,000 paintings.

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Successive sales already made during my lifetime and after my death by Joseph Bonaparte, my universal legatee, have thus deprived Ajaccio of masterpieces by Giotto, Mantegna, Raphael, Pontormo or Rembrandt.

 

Located in the heart of Ajaccio, the Institute of Sciences and Arts is now the Palais Fesch Museum of Fine Arts and it still houses a fantastic collection of paintings.