2-981-901 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Unveiling the Memorial Tablet of Keats in the English Cemetery at Rome, 1876. 'A memorial medallion erected to the poet Keats, upon the pilaster of the gateway close to his tombstone in the Protestant burying-ground, was uncovered on Monday afternoon. An address was delivered by Major-General Sir Vincent Eyre. The sculptor, Mr. Warrington Wood, having generously declined payment for his work, Sir Vincent stated that the amount would be treated as a nucleus of a larger sum for the execution of a bust to be placed in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, provided the requisite permission could be obtained'. British poet John Keats died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. Fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley who, like Keats died in Italy in his twenties, is also buried in the Protestant Cemetery. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.