Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte sur le pont d’Arcole, c. 1801, Château de Versailles

It has become possible recently to identify Napoleon’s dna from samples taken from male descendants of his brothers. Napoleon’s dna is unusual and distinctive, and –interestingly– turns out to be an example of Haplogroup E1b1b1c1, a group of Levantine origin, which suggest that Napoleon Bonaparte’s ultimate male descent was from ancient Phoenecian traders, or Sephardic Jews, or possibly even from the Moors, which did not keep him having blond hair as young man (which later darkened) and grey-blue eyes.

The flag of Corsica features a Moor’s Head, referring to the island’s medieval invasion by the Saracens.

If your Y-dna is from Haplogroup E1b1b1c1, you will want to drop by the Napoleon DNA Project to compare your own results.

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In “True Romance” (1993), written by Quentin Tarrantino, Dennis Hopper gallantly foils the Mafiosi determined to extract information about his son’s whereabouts by torture by insulting his Sicilian captors over their Moorish descent.