Pedro I: Emperor’s embalmed heart on a plane to Brazil

• To commemorate 200 years of independence from Portugal, the embalmed heart of Pedro I, the first emperor of Brazil, is being flown to Brasilia.
• The heart, which is being flown from Portugal on a military aircraft, is being kept in a flask of formaldehyde.
• After Brazil’s Independence Day, the heart will be sent back to Portugal.

To commemorate 200 years of independence from Portugal, the embalmed heart of Pedro I, the first emperor of Brazil, is being flown to Brasilia.

The heart, which is being flown from Portugal on a military aircraft, is being kept in a flask of formaldehyde.

Before being put on display for the general public at the foreign ministry, it will be welcomed with military honours.

After Brazil’s Independence Day, the heart will be sent back to Portugal.

For the celebrations of Brazil’s bicentennial, Portuguese officials got the go-ahead for the preserved organ to be transferred from the city of Porto.

Rui Moreira, the mayor of Porto, is travelling with the organ aboard a Brazilian air force aircraft.

Mayor Moreira stated that after basking “in the admiration of the Brazilian people,” it would travel back to Portugal.

According to Alan Coelho de Séllos, head of protocol for the Brazilian foreign ministry, “the heart will be received as a head of state and handled as if Dom Pedro I were still living among us.”

There will be a guard of honour, a cannon salute, and full military honours.

The national song and the independence anthem, which, by the way, was written by Dom Pedro I, who was also an emperor and a talented musician in his spare time, will be played, according to Mr. Séllos.

Dom Pedro was a member of the Portuguese royal family, which at the time also held sway over Brazil, and was born in 1789. To escape Napoleon’s advancing army, the family took refuge in the Portuguese colony of the time.

In 1821, Dom Pedro’s father, King John VI, entrusted the 22-year-old to serve as regent of Brazil after his departure for Portugal.

The young regent refused the Portuguese parliament’s demand that he return to his country of origin a year later, defying its desire to maintain Brazil as a colony.

He published Brazil’s proclamation of independence on September 7, 1822, and was soon crowned emperor.

He went back to Portugal to fight for his daughter’s claim to the kingdom and passed away from tuberculosis at the age of 35.

The king requested, on his deathbed, that his heart be extracted from his corpse and transported to Porto, where it is housed in an altar at the Our Lady of Lapa church.

In 1972, in honour of Brazil’s 150th anniversary of independence, his body was brought there and interred in a vault in So Paulo.

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