Shelley’s Mighty Heart

One of the most enduring myths connected with the life and death of Percy Bysshe Shelley is that his heart survived the cremation of his body. But is that possible? It’s time to get to the bottom of this puzzle. The answer will surprise you.

Here’s the bare bones of the story. Shelley went sailing. Shelley drowned. Shelley’s badly decomposed body turned up on a beach ten days later. Shelley’s friends cremated his body under somewhat extraordinary circumstances. It was alleged that his heart had, as if by a miracle, survived the intense heat - heat sufficient to reduce his bones to ashes. And so was born a myth or a legend or a miracle, call it what you will, that has survived to this day.

It should have been a rather straightforward process to debunk this myth. Instead, it grew in power. People wanted to believe this. None more so than Mary Shelley and Percy’s coterie of friends. The curious question is why Shelley scholars have been so reluctant to or inept at rejecting and debunking the legend. But I am undaunted. So, let’s dig in and go straight to the facts connected with the cremation. And let’s bring a cardiologist to the stand!

At the time of his death, Shelley and his wife Mary had been living in San Terenzo in a ramshackle house that was literally right on the beach. In 2017, I visited the scene. Here I am across the little bay from where Shelley lived out his last tumultuous days:

Shelley had acquired a small boat which he used to sail for pleasure in the area. Byron also built one. Shelley called his Boat Ariel. It was an open boat (i.e. no deck) and between 8 and 9 metres in length. It was two-masted and was round bottomed, that is to say, it had no keel making it extremely unstable. He also would use it for pleasure sailing and also (more dangerously) to travel about 80 kilometers down the coast to Livorno to visit his friends, including Lord Byron. On 1 July 1822 he set off with his friend Edward Williams on just such a voyage.

After 7 days in Livorno, Shelley, Williams and a young deckhand Charles Vivian boarded the Ariel to return to San Torenzo - Mary was waiting and Shelley was anxious to get home. The weather was not promising, and the region was well known for sudden, unpredictable storms. His friend Trelawney attempted to follow him in Byron’s boat, the Bolivar, but was turned back by port authorities because he lacked the necessary credentials to leave port. According to Trelawney, through his telescope he observed the Ariel disappear into the gloom. Hours later a violent storm hit Livorno. Looking again through his telescope, he saw no sign of the Ariel.

When I visited Livorno is 2017, I was in search some footage to give a sense of where Shelley would have been at the time. I was immensely disappointed to discover a congested city with almost no views. Disconsolate we drove out to the outskirts. In search of a washroom, I suddenly noticed the Grand Hotel Palazzo Livorno! Right on the beach. It occurred that there HAD to be a rooftop restaurant, right? There was. And it was gorgeous. And it had a 360-degree view of Livorno - including the waterfront. There was. I can safely say that no one has ever captured this view for these purposes. You are seeing it for the first time. And it most definitely will add to your appreciation of what transpired. 

 There is much controversy about the sinking of the Ariel. They are as madcap as the rest of the story; was it suicide? were they rammed by pirates? Entire books have been written about this. Whatever the circumstances were, sink she did. And with her went Shelley, Williams and Vivian. None survived. But it is nonetheless worth some amateur meteorological observations. The day we filmed from the roof of the Sofitel, it occurred to me that the weather was uncannily like the weather that has been described by multiple witnesses in 1822. See my video below.

In the following days their bodies, one by one, were discovered washed up the beaches between Livorno and Viareggio. First Williams was found at the mouth of the Serichio; then Shelley at Viareggio and finally Vivian further north at Massa. The search had been led mostly by Trelawney, but Byron and Leigh Hunt were most definitely involved and would remain so through the ensuing days. It took about ten days for the bodies to wash ashore. This would not have been an easy hunt as the shoreline was heavily wooded and not easy to access.

Most unfortunately all of my photographs and videos (save one) of the beach at Viareggio (see below) are missing at the time of writing. If I can locate them, I will update this article to include them.

The bodies were badly decomposed and at first difficult to identify. Shelley was the easiest. Despite all of his exposed flesh having been eaten away by scavenging fish, he still had his clothes on, and Trelawney found two books in his pockets; books known to have been in Shelley’s possession when he left port. To comply with the quarantine laws, the local sanitary authorities demanded that Shelley’s body be buried immediately – exactly where it was found. And so, a pit of sand was dug, and Shelley’s remains were interred much to the consternation of Mary and his friends. The body was covered with quicklime and covered with sand.

It was Mary’s wish that Shelley’s body should be moved to Rome to be buried next to their dead son (see below).  Jane wanted her husband’s body returned to England. Shelley’s friends, led largely by Trelawney, set about to make this happen.

The strict sanitary laws in place at the time were designed to prevent the spread of unknown diseases, including the plague which still haunted the imaginations of Europeans. So, Trelawney and Byron came up with a plan to satisfy the health officials. They would disinter the body and immediately cremate the remains. Even so it too a lot of convincing to get the necessary permission.

Trelawney took no half measures. To the extent people have thought about the circumstances of the cremation, they assume Shelley was burned on a big pile of wood (see below) – a funeral pyre, just like the manner in which ancient Greeks burned their heroes - as described by Homer (see right) And there is absolutely no doubt that this was in the minds of Byron and Trelawney. Shelley was a philhellene of the first order. It was only fitting that he should be burned like a Homeric hero.

The painting to your left is meant to represent the funeral. It became very famous. However, the facts are all wrong Byron was not there. Mary was not there. Hunt was not there. Shelley’s body was also badly decomposed and, gruesomely, there was no face and the body was in two pieces. The skull had been smashed during the retrieval process. Thus this painting is a total fabrication. But an incredibly influential one. It was all part of the “industrial myth-building complex” that took over after Shelley died.

But more important than anything else, Shelley was not burned on a little pile of wood. No doubt to satisfy the demands of the local government officials, Trelawney had a portable crematorium made:

“I made my preparations by ordering a machine of iron 5 feet long and two [feet wide] with a proportionate rim entirely round [it] supported by legs 2 feet high to burn the body in. To receive the ashes, I gave directions for two boxes of a foot and a half in length with proportionate breaths and depth to be covered with black velvet and fastened with screws. A plate of brass was to be attached on the top with a Latin inscription simply stating their loss by shipwreck, age, country, etc.”

I hate to say this, but it sounds for all the world like a rather large barbeque. Trelawney himself described it as a furnace with the body lying on iron bars. Trelawney, Byron, Hunt, a sanitary officer and five soldiers were present on August 15 for a “test run” of the apparatus at the site of William’s burial. It took more than four hours to cremate the body and was a messy business. Everyone was exhausted. But they were committed. The very next day they arrived at Shelley’s grave. Mary was not present. Trelawney described the scene:

“The lonely and grand scenery that surrounded us so act exactly harmonized with Shelley’s genius that I could imagine his spirit soaring over us. The sea, with the islands of Gorgona, Capri and Elba, was before us; old battlemented watchtowers stretched along the coast, backed by the marble crested Apennines, glistening in the sun, picturesque in their diversified outlines, and not a human dwelling was in sight”

This was the beach at Viareggio. I have been there and one thing that I can tell you is that even from the top of a tall building, you cannot see the islands of Gorgona, Capri, and Elba. You can clearly see in Trelawney’s choice of words, hints of the myth that was in development.

It had been difficult to locate Shelley’s body. And when they removed it from the sandy grave it fragmented. But it was hoisted into the furnace and the fire lit. Trelawney claims to have uttered an incantation (which seems to have been later confirmed by Byron):

“I restore to nature through fire, the elements of which this man was composed: earth, air, and water: everything is changed, but not annihilated; he is now a portion of that which she worshiped.”

He also tossed frankincense, oil and wine into the fire at the same time. This did leave one biographer of Byron’s to remark that a scene such as this had probably not been seen in the Mediterranean for 2000 years. Byron’s remark was, “I knew you were a pagan, but not that you were a pagan priest; you did this very well”.

Here is Trelawney’s description (one of many, all different) from 1858:

After the fire was well kindled we repeated the ceremony of the previous day; and more wine was poured over Shelley’s dead body than he had consumed during his life.  This with the oil and salt made the yellow flames glisten and quiver.  The heat from the sun and fire was so intense that the atmosphere was tremulous and wavy.  The corpse fell open and the heart was laid bare.  The frontal bone of the skull, where it had been struck with the mattock, fell off; and, as the back of the head rested on the red-hot bottom bars of the furnace, the brains literally seethed, bubbled, and boiled as in a cauldron, for a very long time.

But Byron grew weary of the gruesome scene. It was going to take hours (eventually more than six) to completely burn the remains. Leigh Hunt had no stomach for it all and returned to his carriage to await the cremation’s conclusion. Byron for his part swam out to the Bolivar, which was anchored about a mile offshore. Shortly thereafter, the fire still burning, he returned to land, joined Hunt and the two left Trelawney alone.  From this point on, apart from Trelawney, and perhaps some sanitary officials lost to history, no one witnessed what was about to happen. And ALL accounts rely completely on Trelawney’s ever-changing narrastive..

Here is what he wrote in the immediate aftermath of the cremation.

“Although we made a tremendous fire, it burnt exceedingly slow; and it was three hours before the body separated. It then fell open across the breast and the heart, which was now seen, was likewise small. It was nearly 4 o’clock before the body was whole consumed, that part nearest the heart being the last that became ashes. And the heart itself seemed proof against the fire, for it was still perfect, and though the largest bones were reduced to white ashes, the heart which although bedded in fire would not burn. After waiting an hour continually adding fuel, it became late and we gave over by mutual conviction of it being unavailing, all exclaiming, it will not burn. There was a bright flame round it occasioned by the moisture, still flowing from it, and removing the furnace nearer to the sea to immerse the iron, I took the heart in my hand to examine it after sprinkling it with water; yet it was still so hot as to burn my hand badly and quantity of this oily fluid, still flowed from it.”

It is important to focus on EXACTLY what Trelawney’s claim was. He claimed the heart (first seen after about three hours) survived the entire cremation process and that it was still “perfect” after over 6 hours of incineration and after every other component of the body was reduced to ash - bones included. It is also an odd aspect of the story that after seeing a “perfect” heart at the third hour, he added more fuel to the fire and onlyremoved the heart hours later. Why didn’t he remove it immediately?

I think common sense provides the answer. If Trelawney told a story in which he had plucked the heart out at the beginning (or even mid-way through) it would not have been as compelling. It would not have been a “miracle”. But if his story was that the heart survived the entire six or seven hour process, and that he tried very hard to burn the heart, well that might just BE something like a miracle; something to build a legend upon. And that is exactly what Trelawney wanted to do.

The circumstances of his death and the actions of his friends and loved ones contributed to a veritable circus of hagiography and myth-making that continues to this day - replete with the development of a trove of "relics" and icons (so-called Shelleyana” - of which my father was a collector) many of which are of dubious provenance - including his heart. The story of the heart kicked off the proceedings. And the myth has lived on and has assumed quasi-religious, if not outright religious, overtones. Indeed, shortly after his death Shelley was going to undergo a full-blown deification; in which Mary was a knowing and enthusiastic participant. Michael Gamer in his article, “Shelley’s Incineration” wrote:

From Trelawny's decision to pluck Shelley's heart from the crematory fire (which at once scorched his hand and produced a quarrel between Mary Shelley and Hunt over who had the greater right to it), to Hunt's first announcements of Shelley's death in The Examiner (which produced a firefight in the London press), to the myriad of accounts of Shelley's life published over the next decades (themselves the children of such controversies), the task of creating what commentators have called the "Shelley Myth" was a collective effort, fre­quently contentious but remarkably coherent in purpose and symbolic language.

I think Shelley, who was a sophisticated skeptic and one of history’s great atheists, would be appalled. And I think he would be very happy to have a stake driven through the heart of this myth and the hagiography which ensued. Well, I am here to oblige.

In some quarters doubt did began to creep in. Something didn’t add up. It just sounded too good to be true; the heart of a human being surviving temperatures of over 700 degrees Celsius? While the bones turned to ash? To rebut the doubters, a new theory was advanced. Shelley’s heart had survived because there had been extensive “calcification” as the result of the “pericardium” effect.  This is the so-called “armoured heart” theory. Several otherwise reputable Shelley scholars have ascribed to this theory. If you Google “Shelley’s Heart” today, you will find the myth perpetuated but often adjusted. It is now common to refer to the heart as his “calcified heart” often with the suggestion that “physicians” attribute this to an earlier bout with tuberculosis.

People, Shelley stans in particular, have clung tenaciously to the theory that Shelley’s heart survived the cremation process.  I guess many of them wanted then and want now to believe that a miracle happened - that Shelley was somehow special; more than special.

In 1966, at last, this story fell into the hands of Dr. Earle Parkhill Scarlett. According to one biographical note, “Scarlett was a man of distinction and culture. He was a classical scholar, author, historian, musicologist, and physician”. More importantly, he had a particular specialty in heart disease and had mastered the electrocardiograph. Writing in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Volume 118 in October 1966, Scarlett challenged Trelawney’s version. We can now call Dr. Scarlett to the stand again. After reviewing the evidence, he wrote:

“First, it should be noted that apart from some minor in dispositions and a hypochondriacal tendency, quite in keeping with an individual of Shelley’s temperament, there is nothing of note in his past medical history, nor is there any suggestion of symptoms, such as dyspnea, abdominal swelling, or edema, such as one might expect with advanced pericardial involvement. Shelley was unusually well and active during the last months of his life. Then it was noted by all observers that the heart was small which, while still compatible with pericardial calcification, would hardly be expected in a case of extreme calcification. In short, with calcification so extensive as to prevent destruction by burning one would’ve expected symptoms and signs of constrictive pericarditis, and of these there is no evidence whatsoever.” (emphasis added).

For some reason, this article has not attracted the notice of a single Shelley scholar. In one of James Bieri’s footnotes in “Shelley - A Biography”, he records,

“…Frederick L Hildebrand, M. D. a pulmonary specialist, in a letter to the author, 11 November 1996 noted that heart calcification is extremely rare and would've caused a protracted illness with heart failure, inconsistent with Shelly's physical health at the time of his death.”

He goes on to allow that IF Shelley had “tuberculosis percarditis” it was possible the heart could have calcified. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Shelley suffered from tuberculosis. I have searched in vain to see another single medical opinion offered – and I do not believe there is - simply endless speculation by non-experts over the decades. Scarlett’s article has lain unnoticed for decades behind an expensive paywall.

Thus, we have a very definitive set of medical opinions which once and for all put to rest the idea that Shelley’s heart could have survived the entire 6-hour cremation process.  It was a perfectly normal heart from a medical point of view. It would never have survived the inferno.

If you find this disappointing. I have an olive branch of sorts. Here are some incontestable facts. Trelawney gave something to Mary. He said it was the heart. Mary believed him. Mary kept it with her her for the rest of her life. She was buried with it. So what was it? Well it can’t have been a heart that spent six or seven hours in a furnanced the burned bones to ashes. That would have been impossible.

So, I’m going to leave you with this thought. What if Trelawney simply lied about when he took the heart out of the flames. Maybe he removed the heart when he first saw it and then concocted a lie to help create his legend. This is the ônly reasonable explanation for what happened. Trelawney lied. And this would not be the first time, nor would it be the last time this mountebank told a whopper.

So, I guess we are left bereft and saddened- there was nothing miraculous, supernatural, or special about Shelley’s heart…..or was there?

Well, how about this? Shelley had a capacious heart. It was bursting with love, compassion and empathy. Love for his fellow human beings; love for nature, love for literature, for plants and animals - love for for everything in this wide world. He created an entire poetic/philosophical system based on empathy and love to help us experience a revolution in our minds so that we can work together to change to our world for the better. He believed in humanity. He believed in our perfectibility. He believed in the power of love. Now that’s mighty heart worth venerating.Quod Erat Demonstrandum

Postscript: After the cremation was completed, Trelawney immersed the “heart’ in some wine to “preserve” it and put Shelley’s ashes in the pre-prepared boxes. He then returned to Livorno and his friends with the foregoing story. Clearly from everything that Byron, Hunt and the others wrote thereafter they took Trelawney’s words as truth. Mary kept what she believed to be Shelley’s heart with her for the rest of her life. Upon her death in 1851, it was buried with her. It is my opinion that Byron took Shelley’s death very badly. I believe his decision to go to Greece and make something of his life was very much influenced by Shelley’s premature death. Byron died very soon after Shelley. Trelawney lived to a great age, dining out forever on his association with Shelley and Byron. As for Shelley? He was in fact buried in Rome near to his beloved son in the il Cimitero Acattolico di Roma (The Non-Catholic Cemetery of Rome - otherwise known as the “Protestant Cemetery”). And who is directly beside him? Trelawney. Trelawney who oversaw Shelley’s burial and was canny enough to reserve a second spot right beside his hero. The two are thus, irritatingly, forever linked. The cemetery is one of the most beautiful spots in the world. You should visit. I wrote about it here. I hope some of my ashes will also find their way to il Cimitero Acattolico di Roma. Maybe if I am lucky!