Emperor Pedro I’s heart returns to Brazil for ‘state visit’
- Monarch declared Brazil’s independence from Portugal 2 centuries ago, and his remains were divided between the two countries after his death
- The organ – cut from his body and kept in a golden urn – was flown back for the South American country’s 200th birthday celebrations
Nearly two centuries after it was cut from his corpse and stashed in formaldehyde, the heart of Emperor Pedro I, who declared Brazil’s independence from Portugal, returned Monday for politically charged commemorations of the South American nation’s 200th birthday.
Dom Pedro, a beloved figure in both Brazilian and Portuguese history, has been divided between the two countries in death – his heart enshrined in a church in Porto, Portugal, and the rest of his remains in an independence monument in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
But after Porto city officials agreed to return the heart on loan, it arrived in Brazil for the country’s bicentennial independence celebrations on September 7.
The heart, which is kept in a glass jar in a golden urn, arrived with all the pomp and circumstance of a state visit.
“It will be treated as if Dom Pedro I were alive and with us … just as if it were a state visit by a foreign leader,” said Alan Coelho, chief of ceremonial protocol at the Brazilian foreign ministry.