Where is Lord Byron's heart?

[Sem Phan]

Confirmation (including authoritative citation) is needed that Lord Byron's heart
was buried in Greece (specific site?). I need this to settle an ongoing debate.

Presumably his other remains are interred in England somewhere?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Ed Haupt]

There was an extensive discussion on HUMANIST 1-2 years ago about cases
of burying one part of the body in one place and other parts somewhere
else. There was a large and gruesome list, but no clear logic for it.
I hope someone could search humanist for "buried hearts" or something like
that.
Ed Haupt

[Nicholas R. Clifford]

Byron died at Missolonghi on 19 April 1824, and presumably if his heart
was bured in Greece, it was there (he was given full military honors
by the Greeks at the time of his death). His body was sent home; West-
minster Abbey wouldn't have him, so he was buried near Newstead
Abbey, the baronial seat.

He was present, of course, when the bodies of Shelley and Edward Williams
were washed ashore after their boating accident at Viareggio,
and, with Leigh Hunt, watched the bodies burned on the beach; not quite
the same thing as burying part of the body in one place, another
in another.

Nick Clifford

[Jan Mirejovsky]

Doris Langley Moore quotes from the records kept in Greece by Byron's Italian
secretary Lega Zambelli:

"Apr. 22nd 4 okes (about 10 lbs) of yellow wax candles on the occasion of
the funeral procession of Milord's heart"

Lord Byron, accounts rendered / Doris Langley Moore. London ; J.Murray, 1974.

[Hope A. Greenberg]

Just ran across another interesting multiple (or is that mutilated)
interrment. St. Catherine (d. 1380?), canonized by Pius II and made patron
saint of Italy in 1939: her head is buried in Rome and her body in her
native Sienna--or was it the other way around, poor thing...

----------------
Hope Greenberg Hope.Gr...@uvm.edu
Academic Computing "There isn't a book too long, a chair too comfortable
Univ. of Vermont or a cup of tea too large." - C.S. Lewis
Burlington, VT 05490

[Lotte Evans]

Leslie A. Marchant writes in vol. 3 of her biography of Byron
"A curious document written in Italian with Greek signatures remains among
the Byron papers at John Murray's. Sir harold Nicholson has translated as
follows 'We, the undersigned, bear witness that in the large case, which
has been sealed with the seals of the provisional Government, is to be
found the authentic body of the Honourable Lord Byron, peer of England...
We bear witness also that in the smaller case will be found the honoured
intestines of the said noble and respected LordByron....contained in four
separate jars. The lungs, which are missing were deposited, in deference
to the repeated representations of the citizens of Missolonghy, in the church
of San spiridione..."
So it seems it was the lungs which were buried with honours in Greece and not
the Heart

[Beth Nachison]

>Just ran across another interesting multiple (or is that mutilated)
>interrment. St. Catherine (d. 1380?), canonized by Pius II and made patron
>saint of Italy in 1939: her head is buried in Rome and her body in her
>native Sienna--or was it the other way around, poor thing...

This practice of multiple body-parts burial seems not to
have been all that extraordinary. Robert the Bruce reportedly
had his heart removed and carried to the Holy Land, while his
body remained in Scotland. In France in the 17-18 c the bodies of
the Princes of Conde were buried in a family vault at Valery,
while their hearts remained in the chapel at Chantilly (the
urn is still there, but the contents were dumped in the Revolution).
There are engravings I've seen reproduced of the magnificent
funeral given to the Grand Conde's heart in 1686.

Beth Nachison
So. Connecticut State University
nach...@scsu.ctstateu.edu