Emily Chan
Beneath the ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral, a lead-lined coffin was unearthed, and it contained the body of an ancient “horseman.”
According to forensics experts, the body has been identified as Joachim du Bellay, the French Renaissance poet.
The preserved remains were found in 2022 during excavations that were conducted after the fire at the cathedral in 2019.
The remains were stored inside a sealed sarcophagus near where the high priest Antoine de la Porte was interred.
The Toulouse University Hospital’s forensic institute performed an analysis of the man’s remains. His skeleton showed signs of bone tuberculosis, chronic meningitis, and wear and tear from riding horses.
“He matches all the criteria of the portrait,” said Dr. Éric Crubézy, a professor of biological anthropology at the University of Toulouse and a research director at the National Center for Scientific Research in France.
“He is an accomplished horseman, suffers from both conditions mentioned in some of his poems, like in ‘La Complainte du désespéré,’ where he describes ‘this storm that blurs [his] mind,’ and his family belonged to the royal court and the pope’s close entourage.”
Crubézy added that du Bellay even rode from Paris to Rome while he had tuberculosis. In his state of health, the journey nearly killed him.
The poet was born in 1522 in Anjou, which is located in western France’s Loire Valley. Later, he moved to Paris and Rome, where he created his works during the French Renaissance.
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