Brazil Receives Preserved Heart of First ‘Emperor’ to Mark 200th Independence Day

TOPSHOT - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (R) and First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro stand n
EVARISTO SA/AFP via Getty Images
Gabrielle Reyes

Brazil received from Portugal the preserved heart of Dom Pedro I, a 19th-century Portuguese monarch who granted Brazil independence from Portugal in 1822, on Tuesday with honors reserved for a head of state to mark the nation’s 200th independence day, Reuters reported.

“The heart, kept in formaldehyde in a glass jar inside a gold urn, arrived at the presidential palace in an open Rolls Royce flanked by a mounted color guard and was received by President Jair Bolsonaro with a gun salute. Air Force planes flew past,” the news agency detailed on August 23.

Dom Pedro I’s heart arrived in Brasília, Brazil’s federal capital, on August 22 from Porto, Portugal, where it has been stored inside of a church for the past 188 years. The Portuguese regent requested that his heart be removed from his body and kept in Porto before he died in 1834. Portugal’s government is temporarily loaning Dom Pedro I’s heart to Brazil’s government from August 22 to September 7 so that Brazil may exhibit the relic at its Presidential Palace as part of a host of festivities organized to honor the nation’s independence bicentennial.

“Pedro declared Brazilian independence in 1822 and was crowned ’emperor’ of Brazil after his father King Joao VI returned to Portugal following the restoration of European monarchies after the defeat of Napoleon,” Reuters recalled on Tuesday.

“Though Pedro returned to Portugal nine years later, his declaration of independence on September 7, 1822 is acclaimed by Brazilian nationalists as the birth of their country,” according to the news agency.

Portugal’s government donated Dom Pedro I’s remains, minus his heart, to Brazil in 1972 to mark the nation’s 150th independence anniversary. The preserved remains are currently stored in a museum in Sao Paulo.

“It was on this date, in 1500, that the Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral discovered Brazil and made it a Portuguese settlement. Dom Pedro proclaimed independence on Sept. 7, 1822, in defiance of his father, the King of Portugal,” the Associated Press wrote on April 22, 1972, while covering the transfer of Dom Pedro I’s remains to Brazil.

“Two countries, united by history, linked by a heart. Two hundred years of independence. Ahead, an eternity in freedom. God, homeland, family!” Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said during a brief speech on August 23 to welcome Dom Pedro’s heart to Brasília.

A military band played “the Independence Anthem [of Brazil], composed by D. Pedro I himself” during the welcoming ceremony, according to the Brazilian newspaper Correio Braziliense.

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