The Horner Medallion

Of the many things that happened here during our Pisan exile, the most important was surely the press conference about a very interesting discovery made in the Old English Cemetery.

A lucky afternoon, clearing weeds around the graves, our friends of the Livorno delle Nazioni association found a marble medallion, broken in three pieces, but without any missing part. After some research they found out that the bas-relief was part of the tomb of Francis Horner, who died in Pisa in 1817 of a lung disease, and the author was the renowned sculptor Francis Chantrey. Francis Horner was only 39 when he died, but he was an already well-known Member of Parliament and one of the first politicians of the time to speak out against child labor.

The medallion was probably lost during the bombings of the Second World War and now will hopefully find its place in a local museum, with a copy restored to Horner's tomb.
Thanks to Matteo Giunti, Sarah Thompson and Stefano Ceccarini of Livorno delle Nazioni for the data and the photos used in this post.

See also: Old English Cemetery - New English Cemetery
External links: Francis Horner - Francis Chantrey (Wikipedia)
- Italians unveil long-lost tomb medallion of Scottish MP (The Guardian)
- Long-lost plaque commemorating MP found in Livorno's Old English Cemetery (The Telegraph)
- Great Scots’ Italian burial site ‘falling to ruin’ (The Scotsman)

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