The Pope's elephant - Silvio A. Bedini

Rome attained, in the early sixteenth century, its high summer of splendour. The Turks had extinguished Constantinople, Rome's thousand-year rival; Rome had become the undisputed centre of Christendom. Architects, craftsmen and artists - of Bramante, Michelangelo and Raphael among them - swarmed for commissions to rebuild and embellish the long derelict city. And, far beyond Rome itself, these were the years when the ships of Portugal and Spain gave Christendom direct access to 'new' worlds. Who better to reign in such brilliant times than a son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Medici who became Pope in 1513 as Leo X?

Having achieved command of eastern coasts and seas, the Portugese sought reinforcement for their monopolies from the Pope. The election of Leo provided King Manuel I with timely opportunity. His 'mission of obedience' amazed by its opulence. Among the fabled gifts was a young white Indian elephant. 'Hanno' could kneel and dance, trumpet and weep, on command. He promptly became the darling of the Pope and populace, the star in processions and festivals, and the subject of paintings, sculptures and fountains as illustrated in this book. No other beast has been so memorialized - the symbol of the Orient now so richly opened to the West.

All too soon Leo's sunny times were overcast. The papal court ran to extremes of excess, frivolity and impropriety. A mere monk in Augsburg, called Martin Luther, denounced such behaviour, describing Leo 'indolently catching flies while his pet elephant cavorted before him'. Then in 1516, Hanno sickened and died. Overcome with grief, Leo commissioned Raphael to make a great fresco depicting his pet on the wall beside the Vatican entrance, and himself composed a touching epitaph. Within five years, Raphael, Leo and Manuel had all died; five years later, the Church was irrevocably split by the 'Reformation' and Rome was occupied by mutinous troops and violently plundered, destroying relics of the little elephant.

In a tour de force of original scholarship, Dr Bedini resurrects the engaging tale of the pope and his elephant, with contemporary literature and to drawings, paintings and other objects scattered now around the world. INnthe process he re-creates those colourful times when new 'discoveries' made the world seem rich and young and depicts the life of the papal court during its brief Leonine sunburst.