Description

Holograph, signed.Title devised by cataloger.Boston Public Library (Rare Books Department) manuscript composed in brown ink on white paper. In the head- spine corner of the first page, the phrase "Copy of letter from Mme. Venturi to Richard D. Webb" is written in blue ink, and then continues "on the death of Joseph Mazzini" in black ink. Above the salutation, the number "17" is written in pencil.In this copy of a letter to R.D. Webb, Emilie Ashurst Venturi discusses the death of Giuseppe Mazzini, calling it "our heavy loss". Venturi contrasts the treatment of Mazzini during his life with his "horribly theatrical ostentatious manner of burial", and says the funeral "would have so revolted him". She also mentions plans to "petrify" his body with the "idea of keeping him above ground and making a procession again to the remains every anniversary" and a petition of Mazzini's English friends to stop it. On page 9, there is a copy of another letter to R.D. Webb from Venturi, dated "April 6, [18]72", where she again mentions her work gathering signatures for the petition to stop the petrification plans for Mazzini. She describes a hut in the cemetery "where the sacred corpse taken from its coffin ... is given over to a materialist surgeon and chemist to desecrate with their horrible experiments."

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Boston Public Library

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Digital Commonwealth