Elephant from Antwerp

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The second elephant of Maximilian II on his arrival in Antwerp. Flyer , printed in 1563, hand-colored

The elephant of Antwerp aroused when he arrived in the city in 1563 a stir among citizens and scholars. The animal came from Spain and was on its way to Vienna to see Emperor Maximilian II . It supposedly lived until at least 1577.

Animal life

The elephant came to Portugal from Ceylon or India and was given as a present by Catherine of Castile , Queen of Portugal, to her grandson Don Carlos , son of Philip II , in 1562. From there, Emperor Maximilian II got the animal after his first elephant, Soliman, died in 1553. The successor was delivered by sea to Antwerp and migrated from there via Brussels , Cologne and Olomouc to Vienna to the imperial menagerie Ebersdorf .

Little is known about the life of the elephant in Vienna. The botanist Carolus Clusius claimed that he had met the animal, which he had already seen in Antwerp, several times at the Viennese court. The use of the elephant in an imperial elevator in Prague in 1570 is documented:

In Fasten 1570, the prince had a grandiose play performed on the Old Town Square: In the middle of the square, the Etna volcano rose up, breathing fire on all sides, fluttered around by hideous birds. Suddenly there was a roar of lions, the king of the beasts was being brought in a cage. In the end, the monstrous pachyderm, bearing the King of India, appeared as the hero of the day and sat down in front of Maximilian, but could not be induced to pay the same respect to the other high authorities. According to contemporary reports, the 'first' elephant astonished Prague residents.

The date of death of the elephant is unknown. Henry III. I saw him, it is reported, in 1574 on his way back from Poland to France during a stay in Vienna. A source according to which in July 1577 the Nuremberg council had the landlord Clasen Körber "carried away with his elephant wax and pledged" not to sell the same and other of his groceries in the city [...] led to the assumption a year of death; the dating is, however, doubted.

Perceptions

The arrival of the elephant in Antwerp on September 24, 1563 and its journey left clear traces. The young humanist Justus Lipsius was inspired by a tour of the animal in Brussels for his "Praise of the Elephant", a satirical treatise that was often reprinted later and portrayed the elephant as "childish" and "meaningless". The scholars' reports also showed little respect. Lodovico Giucciardini expressed his disappointment that the animal does not have the "great attributes" "of which the ancient authors give so varied reports". In terms of intelligence, the elephant is “as clumsy as in its body”. According to Caspar Horn's translation of Giucciardini, the elephant behaves “no differently than a pig”, he eats everything, “even drank himself so full in wine once that he was lying there 24 hours before death”, and then “like him but the intoxication fell asleep ”, also“ eaten more than ever before ”.

A contemporary leaflet, printed by Jan Mollijn in Antwerp in 1563 and handed down in color, has preserved the lifelike image of the animal, along with the mahout and audience pulling the elephant by the tail, as well as all sorts of legends in the background.

literature

  • Ingrid Faust: Zoological single-sheet prints and pamphlets before 1800 . Volume IV: whales, sirens, elephants . Stuttgart 2002
  • Stephan Oettermann : The elephant curiosity. An Elephantographia Curiosa. Frankfurt am Main 1982, pp. 116-118

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The British Museum Collection online: Curator's comments
  2. Arthur E. Popham : Elephantographia . In: Life and Letters 5, 1930; Pp. 179-191; according to Oettermann (1982) p. 118
  3. ^ Friedrich Reischl: Vienna during the Biedermeier period . Folk life in Vienna's suburbs according to contemporary descriptions . Vienna 1921, pp. 15–16 ( digitized version )
  4. Gustave Loisel: Histoire des Menageries de l'Antiquité à nous jours . Paris 1912, 3 volumes. Volume I, p. 234 ( digitized version )
  5. Oettermann (1982) p. 118
  6. Oettermann (1982) pp. 116-117
  7. Justus Lipsius: Laus elephans . In: JJ Epistolarum selectorum , Leiden 1586; a. in: Dissertationum ludicrorum et amoenitatum . Scriptores varii, Leiden 1638; ud T. Epistola de Elephantis in: Georg Chr. Petri from Hartenfels : Elephantopgraphia curiosa [...] Leipzig / Erfurt 1723
  8. In: Description of the Netherlands , 1615; quoted from Oettermann (1982) p. 117 (note 185)
  9. Caspar Horn: Elephas. This is historical and philosophical discourse / of the great miracle animal, the elephant / whose wonderful nature and eyesight; like that for the longest time in Germany / and seen by many thousands of people. Outside of reinforced old and new histories, compiled and written by Caspar Hornium Phil & Med Doctorem . Simon Waldmayer, Nuremberg 1629 ( digitized ; p. 65 )
  10. ^ Biographical note from the British Museum