Pope's Elephant
- Book Review,
by Silvio A. Bedini
Amazon.com
In early 16th century Rome, at the height of the Italian Renaissance, when artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo thrived in the Holy City, the decadent court of Pope Leo X was a place where visitors could find pleasures and entertainment more exotic than anything they had previously imagined. Among the Pope's great joys was his menagerie of exotic animals, and the prize of his collection was an Indian elephant named Hanno, presented to him by the King of Portugal. The Pope's Elephant by Silvio A. Bedini, historian emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution, describes Hanno's powerful effect on the Papal Court and on the Roman citizenry. This elephant--trained to kneel, dance, weep, and trumpet on command--led parades and entertained at public festivals and was commemorated in paintings, poetry, and sculpture. For Romans, Hanno became the preeminent symbol of the alluring Orient; for Pope Leo's detractors, the elephant became a symbol of Roman corruption. Bedini's rigorous research and eager enthusiasm for his subject and his judicious selection of whimsical illustrations make reading The Pope's Elephant a quirky and delightful pastime. --Michael Joseph Gross
From Library Journal
Deep within this mountain of meticulous research lies the story of a Medici pope's fondness for a small albino elephant, gift of Portugal's King Manuel I to the papal court. Son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leo X (1451-1521) became pope at age 37, determined to enjoy the papacy, bring artists and poets to Rome, and restore the city as a center of Western culture. The book chronicles the diminutive pachyderm Hanno and his journey from India to Portugal to Rome, where for two years he was beloved and enjoyed by the people of the Vatican and used in processions. Writers and artists, including Raphael, memorialized Hanno in his lifetime and after his death in 1516; his remains were identified at the Vatican in the 1960s. Bedini, historian emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, presents Hanno's story as an illuminating footnote on the end of Europe's Golden Age, on local customs and celebrations, on the human side of the mighty, and on the barbarity of the times. Suitable for comprehensive natural history and religion collections.?Anna M. Donnelly, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NYCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The Daily Telegraph
As much as anyone cold wish to know about the pleasureloving pontiff and his pachyderm.
The Independent on Sunday
Combines offbeat charm with historical rigor to such pleasing effect that it would even be suitable bedtime reading for a pontiff wanting to unwind.
The Literary Review
A work of extraordinary scholarship...Crisply written and amply illustrated, it shines a bright light on two short lives, that of Leo and Hanno, and that of the age they embodied.
The Observer
An utterly charming and completely loopy story.
Book Description
The court of Pope Leo X was famous for its excess, frivolity and impropriety. The pleasure-loving pontiff is known to have kept a menagerie of wild birds and beasts, his favorite of which was Hanno, a young white elephant from India, brought to Rome as a gift from the King of Portugal. In this ingenious tour de force of original scholarship, Silvo Bedini gives us an elephant's-back view of early modern Europe, and in so doing leaves us with the tantalizing suggestion that something so frivolous as a pet elephant might--by fueling the flames of the Protestent Reformation--have changed the course of world history.
Card catalog description
Rome, 1514. It is the high summer of the Italian Renaissance. The Turks have extinguished Constantinople, Rome's thousand-year rival. The ships of Portugal and Spain are gaining access to "new" worlds both east and west. Architects, craftsmen and artists - Bramante, Michelangelo and Raphael among themswarm for commissions to rebuild and embellish the long-derelict city. The Eternal City is once again the undisputed center of Christendom. So what on earth is the pope doing with a baby white elephant? In this tour de force of original scholarship, Silvio Bedini gives us an elephant's-back view of early modern Europe unlike any we have seen before.
About the Author
Silvio A. Bedini, Historian Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., served for many years as Deputy Director of the National Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History) and then as the Smithsonian's Keeper of the Rare Books. For many years he has been engaged in research in the Vatican museums, library and archives. He is the author of more than a dozen books.
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