Nicolo Giraud

Nicolo Giraud

Nicolo or Nicolas Giraud (born c. 1795 – unknown) was a friend and possibly lover of George Gordon Byron. The two met in 1809 while Byron was staying in Athens. Giraud was reported to have taught him Italian, and was his travel companion in Greece. Byron paid for Girard's education and left him £7,000 (about £390,000 in 2012) in his will. However, years after Byron and Giraud parted company, Byron changed his will to exclude Giraud. Other than his involvement with Byron, little is known of Giraud's life.

The friendship between Byron and Giraud has become a topic of interest among scholars of Byron and his biographers. Many believe that the pair's relationship was platonic, but correspondence between Byron and his friends has been used since the late 20th century to argue that the two were engaged in a love affair. The earliest claim of a sexual relationship between Giraud and Byron comes from George Colman's poem Don Leon, in which Byron is the principal character and Giraud is portrayed as his liberator from the sexual prejudices in Britain. The poem is not biographical; it promotes Colman's own social and political views.