Loaned by Portugal for the celebrations of the 200 years of the independence of Brazil, the heart of d. Pedro 1º arrives in Brasília this Monday (22) under criticism from intellectuals from both countries.
Despite the controversy – or because of it –, an unprecedented public exhibition of the organ drew thousands of onlookers to the church of Lapa, in Porto, this weekend. According to the city hall, 3,000 people passed through the site in the first eight hours of exposure. When the heart returns from the 20-day season in Brazil, there will be a new opportunity to visit the same space, on September 10th and 11th.
The first scientist to conduct a detailed analysis of Pedro 1º’s remains, forensic archaeologist Valdirene Ambiel, a researcher at USP, is one of the main voices against the journey of the heart.
“I see a political context, because there is no historical context or educational purpose to bring that heart for a very short time,” he says. “Once human organs are used for a simple exhibition, without the teaching context, the exhibition becomes something simply bizarre.”
In an article published in the Portuguese newspaper Público, Portuguese sociologist João Teixeira Lopes spared no criticism of the event. “A heart in formaldehyde will be transported to the immense delight of the Bolsonaro government, which finds here the occasion of a necrophagous feast galvanizing its support base, carrying out, in the middle of the electoral campaign, like the Roman dictators, the policy of panem et circenses [pão e circo]”, he stated.
Ambiel, who is also a historian and anthropologist, considers that there are parallels with the instrumentalization, by the military dictatorship, of the transport of the emperor’s body to Brazil in 1972. Presented as the founder of Brazilian nationality, d. Pedro 1º had the image widely exploited by the military.
Also under dictatorial regime at the time, Portugal sent the mortal remains of the emperor to Brazil due to the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of independence. For five months, the bones went through a kind of tour in several Brazilian cities, with religious ceremonies and street parades.
Author of several books on the history of Brazil, the writer Laurentino Gomes also sees similarities between the loan of the heart and the spectacularization of the mortal remains promoted by the dictatorship.
“Bolsonaro, who cultivates the Brazilian dictatorship, is an adherent of the dictatorship, is an authoritarian man, a misogynist, prejudiced, racist, he tried to mimic the generals [da ditadura militar]. They brought the body, so, in a symbolic gesture, we are going to bring the heart,” he said in an interview with the Lusa agency.
Despite all the official propaganda, the USP researcher highlights that the remains of d. Pedro were treated with negligence, from the way they were deposited to the conditions in which they were in the mausoleum in São Paulo, where there was excess humidity. “There was a beautiful party, but it contrasted a lot with what I came across when he opened his funeral urn in 2012,” she says.
“I was shocked, it was as if the entire contents of the original funerary urn had been poured into the one that brought him to Brazil. The face was almost turned towards the bottom of the urn. The body was completely disarticulated. For me, even as a human being , this is disrespectful.”
Not by chance, the concern with the conservation of the heart —preserved since the death of d. Pedro 1º, in 1834—has been crucial for the Portuguese authorities. Before approving the loan, the Porto City Council commissioned a technical expertise. Then he set up a security scheme.
The organ will be transported in a Brazilian Air Force plane, in a pressurized device. In addition to the mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, the commander of the municipal police, António Leitão da Silva, will also travel.
In Brasília, the heart should be restricted to visitation in the same special exhibitor used now in Porto. The window was designed by architect Luís Tavares Pereira to position the heart at the height of the organ in the human body, taking as a reference the average height of people in Portugal and Brazil.
The Portuguese will also send to Brazil a special kit with formaldehyde and other utensils to be used in an emergency, such as the breaking of the glass urn in which the organ is deposited.
Known in Portugal as d. Pedro 4º –due to the brief period in which he was king of the Iberian country–, the monarch determined that his heart would remain in Porto as a way of recognizing the importance of the city in the fight in which he fought for the throne against the absolutist troops of his younger brother, d. Miguel.
Even under an intense siege for more than a year, the city resisted and was crucial for the victory of Pedro 1º, who would die of tuberculosis months after the end of the conflict, in September 1834, at the age of 35.
