After the elephant’s success, Portugal’s king decided to send the pope a rhinoceros too. But early in 1516 the ship sank off Italy and the chained rhino drowned: the very animal Dürer had immortalised.
The events
- Dürer's Rhinoceros1515 · Nuremberg. In 1515 a live rhinoceros from India reached Lisbon, the first seen in Europe since Roman times. Albrecht Dürer made his woodcut from a sketch and a letter, adding armour plates and a horn on the back — and Europeans pictured rhinos that way for over two centuries.
- Hanno, the pope's elephant1514 · Rome. In 1514 King Manuel I of Portugal gave Pope Leo X a white Indian elephant. Hanno danced for crowds, sprayed onlookers with water and joined processions; when he died two years later, the pope wrote his epitaph and Raphael reportedly designed a memorial fresco.
More amazing facts
- 1513 The Ottoman admiral Piri Reis drew a map showing the coast of South America in 1513.
- 1514 · 1516 Raphael painted a memorial fresco for an elephant.
- 1515 The most famous rhinoceros in art was drawn by a man who never saw one. Dürer worked from a sketch, adding armour plates and an extra horn — and rhinos were drawn his way for over 200 years.
- 1515 · 1793 The iron maiden is not medieval: it was dreamed up in the late 18th century.
- 1517 In 1517 both Christendom and Islam changed course: in January the Ottomans took Cairo and soon became masters of Mecca and Medina, and in October Luther published his Ninety-five Theses.
- 1519 · 1521 While Magellan's expedition circled the globe, Cortés fought the Aztecs.