2024-09-17 15:31:28
Excavations made during the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris revealed a burial which may have belonged to the poet and founder of La Pléiade.
The archaeological excavations in Notre-Dame de Paris have made it possible to discover the burial which could be that of the poet Joachim du Bellay, who is known to be buried in the cathedral without knowing the exact location, researchers indicate from ‘Inrap during the press . conference on Tuesday.
During the excavations carried out during the rebuilding of Notre-Dame, scientists from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) in particular found in 2022 two anthropomorphic leader sarcophagi in the crossing of the transept.
One of the two sarcophagi, bearing an epitaph, was quickly identified as that of Canon Antoine de La Porte (1627-1710). But the identity of the second person, a man in his thirties, remains a mystery.
A “robot” image
The analyzes carried out at the forensic institute of the University Hospital of Toulouse allow us to learn more about this stranger: the damage of his coxal bone indicates that he rode a horse, his sawn skull and broken sternum show that it was autopsied before it was slow. …
Above all, his bones showed a very rare disease: cervical bone tuberculosis which leads to chronic meningitis. “Robot painting” according to the famous Renaissance writer Joachim du Bellay.
“He was a successful horseman, he went from Paris to Rome on horseback, which is not a small thing when you have tuberculosis like him, he almost died from it,” said Eric Cubrézy, doctor and scientist.
“There are doubts”
Born in Anjou, the creator of La Pléiade, a group of poets but also a literary group, died in Paris on the night of 1 to January 2, 1560 at the age of 37 at the age of Notre-Dame .
The family of the author of the collection of sonnets “Les Rerets” and the manifesto “defender and description of the French language”, whose uncle is a cardinal, have requested that he be buried there in the church of Saint-Crépin. But in 1758, during the work, his grave was not found there.
“There are doubts,” however, Christophe Besnier, one of those who did the excavation work at Notre-Dame, specifically referring to the “analysis of isotopes” which “shows that we are faced with a man of he lived in the Paris region or in the Rhône-Alpes region until he was ten years old.
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