Thèodore Bienaimè

Thèodore Bienaimè (Amiens, 1762 – Paris, 1826) was trained at the Royal Academy of Architecture in Paris. He was called by Élisa Bonaparte to the principality of Lucca and Piombino to bring the spirit of Parisian architecture to the territories under her rule: from this view, he renovated the Ducal Palace in Lucca and created the facing Napoleon Piazza.

The court architect made numerous research trips in order to identify the actions that would need to be undertaken. On one of these trips, Bienaimè discovered Montioni, its caves and its mines, and it was decided to build a mining village in order to exploit them...”avec un batiment pour le futur gouverneur qui sera chargè de l’exploitation”.