General & Miscellaneous Religious Biography, Italian History - 1494 - 1861, Renaissance - History, Papacy & Papal History, Spain & Portugal - Historical Biography, General & Miscellaneous European History, Vatican City - History, Roman Catholic Church & t

The Pope's Elephant

Name: The Pope's Elephant
Author: Silvio A. Bedini
ISBN: 9780641533211

by Silvio A. Bedini

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Overview

In this tour de force of original scholarship, Silvio Bedini gives us an elephant’s-back view of early modern Europe. “Combines offbeat charm with historical rigor to pleasing effect.”—The Independent on Sunday.

About the Author, Silvio A. Bedini

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 Nation 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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Editorials

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, NY

Booknews

The most powerful symbol of Leo X's excess, frivolity, and impropriety among his 16th-century contemporaries was his white elephant Hanno. Bedini, a historian connected with the Smithsonian Institution, uses it as a vehicle for surveying early modern Europe, primarily in Italy. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.