Soliman (elephant)

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Soliman near Wasserburg am Inn , dated January 24, 1552; Woodcut by Michael Minck. Inscription: KM D (er) KINIG ZV PEHAM HAT AUSS / ISPANIA IN DAS TEISHS LAND / CELEBRATED AIN HELFANT IS ZV WASS / ERBURG ARKHOMEN AVF DEN 24 / IANUARI IM 1552 IAR / M (ichael) M (inck)

The elephant Soliman (* approx. 1540 in India , † December 18, 1553 in Vienna ) was a gift from Johannas , the daughter of Emperor Charles V and Isabellas of Portugal , to Maximilian, the nephew of the emperor and later Emperor Maximilian II , and the first elephant in Vienna. He left behind the greatest number of historical traces of all elephant gifts in Europe.

background

Since the 13th century, the gift of an elephant was one of the diplomatic customs among European rulers . Already around 800 the white elephant Abul Abbas , sent by the caliph Hārūn ar-Raschīd from Baghdad to Charlemagne in Aachen, is mentioned in a document and by name. An elephant gift to Friedrich II , the so-called Cremona elephant , and a gift from Ludwig IX are secured by sources . , the saint , of France to Henry III. from England. Also known by name was Hanno , sent to Rome by King Emanuel I of Portugal to Leo X on the occasion of his election as Pope. King Louis XIV of France later kept a rare African specimen in the Versailles enclosure for 13 years .

Maximilian, married to his cousin Maria of Spain since 1548 and endowed with the Spanish reign by his imperial uncle Karl , had taken over Soliman in 1551 at the age of 24; 14-year-old Johanna, the youngest daughter of Charles V, Maria's sister and thus Maximilian's cousin and sister-in-law at the same time, had the elephant from her future husband, Prince John of Brazil, son of King John III. from Portugal, to which it was promised in 1548. It is possible that Maximilian's well-known predilection for rarities had prompted him to send the elephant on its journey again.

Life while traveling

Solimans Weg 1551/52 through Tyrol and over the Brenner on a map from 1888, today the Brenner autobahn runs along this route
Hotel Elefant in Auer (South Tyrol)

Soliman, like Hanno an Indian elephant , who came from the Portuguese colonies first to Lisbon , then to Spain , is mentioned in a source from January 1552 as a twelve year old bull. In the winter of 1551/52 he migrated from Valladolid to Vienna.

From Valladolid to Trento

Accompanied by Maximilian, his wife Maria with their two children and a sizeable entourage, he and his mahout , the Indian nurse, were sent across the Iberian Peninsula to Barcelona , from where they were embarked for Genoa . King John III from Portugal is said to have recommended the name "Soliman" for the elephant to the new owner Maximilian in a letter so that the Habsburg arch enemy, Sultan Suleyman , "would be humiliated as your slave, as it were". On November 12, 1551, Soliman reached Genoa, from there to take the route north via Milan , Cremona and Mantua . The stately procession through the Adige Valley reached Trento on December 13th , where the council was just meeting and Soliman caused a sensation that was by no means unintentional. A wooden image of the animal had been set up in the city, from which fireworks were set off; Soliman's entry with his high-caliber Habsburg entourage was designed as a triumphal procession .

Tyrol

The imperial elephant procession followed the route over the Brenner Pass from Trento . One had hoped to be able to impress the Tyroleans in Bolzano with a similar spectacle as the clergy in Trento, which apparently failed. The diplomatic negotiations set up here on the occasion were so slow that it was considered advisable to send the elephant ahead to Brixen , where it arrived on January 2, 1552 and was able to rest for a fortnight until his rule came up and they resigned could make the way through the Eisack Valley and over the Brenner Pass. To commemorate this stay, Soliman's landlord in Brixen renamed his inn to the “Hellephant” inn, which has existed to this day as the “Elephant” and reminds of Soliman in a mural and an inscription that has been renewed over the centuries. 80 years later, when the first fairground elephant toured Europe, an innkeeper in Graz followed suit .

From Innsbruck to Vienna

Soliman reached Innsbruck on Epiphany ; From Hall he traveled with his entourage on the Inn to Wasserburg , which made the journey easier for him, especially in view of the wintry weather; the inscription on a woodcut by Michael Minck notes Soliman's arrival in Wasserburg on January 24th, 1552, where Maximilian's illness required a longer stay. Barely recovered, Maximilian had to interrupt the trip again in Mühldorf am Inn (a Salzburg exclave until 1802 ) in mid-February , this time due to the pregnancy of his wife Maria. At the end of February, the entourage reached Passau at the confluence of the Inn and the Danube, where the town chronicle recorded “a lively Helefanndt wonderfully large”. At the end of February you were in the Habsburg residence in Linz . Here the incumbent mayor Jörg Hutter the Elder had an elephant relief attached to his house in memory of Soliman, which is still preserved at Hauptplatz 21 today.

Triumphal parade and death in Vienna

The elephant house in Vienna. Copper engraving, c. 1720; Cutout
Medal in memory of Soliman, made by Michael Fuchs in 1554 (reverse cast). Inscription: THIS HELPER IS KVMEN GIEN VIENNA IN THE STAT / AS YOU HAVE PACKAGING IN YOUR LIFE

On March 6, 1552, Soliman arrived in Vienna. The entry of the first elephant with the imperial nephew into the city turned out to be a triumphant parade, the way through the Kärntner Tor to Soliman's first accommodation in a barn on the water glacis was lined by the Viennese population.

The mixture of fear and fascination in the face of the large, gray creature resulted in not only anecdotes but also house names. For example, the "elephant house" on the Graben , which was torn down in the 19th century and adorned with an elephant painting, was said to have been painted by the house owner, an overjoyed father, after Soliman's daughter, who was in the hustle and bustle of the triumphal procession Elephants fell at their feet, gently picked up with their trunk and returned to their mother. The term “Zum Wilden Mann”, which occurs quite often in Vienna and is usually traced back to a legendary figure , was given its special Viennese meaning: It is said that it also goes back to Soliman's arrival in Vienna: the dark-skinned servants are in these houses been housed.

Soliman was first exhibited in his barn for some time; then he was taken to the new menagerie in Ebersdorf . Hardly a year and a half after his arrival in Vienna, on December 18, 1553, he died, presumably as a result of incorrect husbandry and improper nutrition; a more recent study brought to light the contemporary reference to a "carelessness of the nurse". Ten years later, in 1563, Maximilian had a second elephant come to Vienna from Spain , but little is known of its stay in the imperial menagerie.

Afterlife

Soliman was dismantled after his death. A chair was made from his bones with an inscription engraved in the seat , which provides information about Soliman's origin, weight and route to Vienna; The chair subsequently changed the art chamber several times , which led to further engravings, among other things. a. those of the coats of arms of its various owners. The elephant chair has been in the collection of the Kremsmünster Abbey , which is now a grammar school, since the end of the 17th century . What became of Soliman's remaining bones is unknown.

Maximilian had Soliman's skin stuffed and plastered with tusks. Albrecht V of Bavaria (1528–1579) made the dead creature the first Bavarian specimen in an art chamber in Munich; Maximilian had received a living replacement elephant from King John of Portugal in 1563. In 1928 the stuffed Soliman came to the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, where it later moldy in a damp bomb cellar. According to Opll (2004), the inventory records its departure on November 28, 1950; It was alleged that shoe soles were "made from the usable remains of his skin".

Sources

Soliman is documented in numerous sources; Ferdinand Opll (2004) was able to thoroughly research them on the basis of the references in Oettermann (1982) and to expand their number. There are written records about Soliman, especially from the area around the Viennese court, as well as mentions in city chronicles and records, which allow an almost complete retracing of Soliman's route across the Alps. Furthermore, the elephant has been preserved in the form of inscriptions and carved in stone. Not least, he was mentioned in some poems of homage to Maximilian, in which he was sometimes the main character. To this day, the considerable number of localities in Austria that have an elephant in their name and on the sign bears witness to Soliman's journey across the Alps.

reception

from: Johann Basilii Küchelbecker's very latest message from the Roman Empire. Hofe (1732), in which the elephant house in Vienna is described. At the end of the page a “twister” of the year, a misprint that can be the cause of incorrect assignments (such as here, for example, the attribution of Solimans to Maximilian I).

The scholarly view of the first elephant in Vienna, which has only recently been increasingly focused on the first elephant in Vienna, was at the same time wrong, in that Immervoll (1989) inadvertently attributed Emperor Maximilian I to Emperor Maximilian I a few years after Oettermann's (1982) correct description of Soliman ; This error clarified by Opll (2004) and its further referencing are possibly the source for the error still to be found on some Internet pages. In the meantime, it is assumed with certainty that the elephant in Vienna was assisted by an Indian keeper, a mahout , who so far only existed in later illustrations; the correction of a reading error in the recording of the inscription on the elephant chair also resulted in written contemporary evidence in 2006.

The thorough search for clues has meanwhile also raised doubts about the reference for Soliman's name; the existence of the letter of John III. of Portugal, in which he suggests Maximilian's name, is questioned. It cannot be ruled out that this letter could have been an invention of the chroniclers who sought to underline the Habsburg zeitgeist with the corruption of the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman I with a suitable pachyderm.

Research into the political significance of the elephant procession through half of Europe for Maximilian's path to later becoming imperial in Vienna is still thin in this context. Oettermann (1982) has already formulated further theses on elephant diplomacy in Europe which, in view of the impressive sources on Maximilian and his Soliman identified by Opll (2004), justify the assumption that the elephant tour from Spain to Vienna is historically viewed as a major diplomatic event can. This assumption has since been confirmed by two studies of Italian and Czech provenance regarding Maximilian's stay in Genoa on his elephant tour and the visit of a stately Bohemian delegation to the city in 1551, who hoped to meet their Habsburg there, who had also been King of Bohemia since 1549 . The sources used for the investigations prove the extraordinary expenditure of the time of expectation and the introit ceremony , so that one can speak of a "peak [...] of possibilities of cultural transfer".

literature

  • Roland Halbritter: Hellafandt alhir. The traveling elephant Soliman. From a living prince gift to an art chamber object. In: Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 2002, pp. 189–199.
  • Hans Heiss : The way of the "elephant". History of a large inn since 1551. Folio Bozen, Vienna 2002.
  • Gertrude Immervoll: The elephant in European folk culture. Unprinted thesis. Graz 1989, p. 62 f.
  • Stephan Oettermann : The elephant curiosity. An Elephantographia Curiosa. Frankfurt am Main 1982, p. 102 ff.
  • Ferdinand Opll : "... a rarity never seen in Vienna before, admired by everyone". On the life, death and afterlife of the first Viennese elephant. In: Studies on Viennese History. Yearbook of the Association for the History of the City of Vienna, Volume 60. Vienna 2004, pp. 229–273.
  • Ferdinand Opll: New findings on the first Viennese elephant. In: Studies on Viennese History. Yearbook of the Association for the History of the City of Vienna, Volume 61 (2005). Vienna 2006, pp. 337–343.
  • Ferdinand Opll: Something that has never been seen before. On the life, death and afterlife of the first Viennese elephant. In: Dagmar Schratter and Gerhard Heindl (eds.): Animals on the go. (Series: Schönbrunn Zoo - History . Ed. By Helmut Pechlaner , Dagmar Schratter and Gerhard Heindl. Volume 3, Vienna 2007), pp. 65–93.
  • Hubert Reitterer: INCVRIA RECTORIS. On the death of the first Viennese elephant. In: Studies on Viennese History. Yearbook of the Association for the History of the City of Vienna, Volume 61 (2005). Vienna 2006.
  • Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues & Tessaleno Devézas: Salomão. O Elefante Diplomata. Centro Atlântico, Lisbon 2008, ISBN 978-989-615-073-0 .
  • Henriette Wiltschek: A post-mortem broken leg. For bonding and preserving an engraved bone object: the elephant chair from Kremsmünster Abbey. In: Austrian magazine for art and monument preservation. ISSN  0029-9626 . 67 (2013), issue 1/2, pp. 122–129. To the elephant chair.
  • Marianne Zollner : “Helafant alhir! The journey of the elephant Soliman from Spain via Mühldorf to Vienna ”. In: Das Mühlrad, contributions to the history of the country at Isen, Rott and Inn. The yearbook of the history association. Volume 50, 2008, pp. 7-22.

Fiction

Movie

Web links

Commons : Soliman (Elephant)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Transfer: KM The [he] king of Böhmen has led an elephant from / Spain to the German land / [.] Has come to Wass / erburg on January 24th in the year 1552 / M [ichael] M [inck] .
  2. ↑ Viktor Ernst: Correspondence of Duke Christoph von Wirtemberg. Volume 1: 1550-1552. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1899, p. 346. In the interpretation of Opll (2007), p. 68 f.
  3. ↑ Viktor Ernst: Correspondence of Duke Christoph von Wirtemberg. Volume 1: 1550-1552. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1899, p. 346.
  4. ↑ quoted from: Oettermann (1982) p. 110 f.
  5. ↑ Mary of Spain gave birth to Rudolf on July 18, 1552 in Vienna, who later became Emperor Rudolf II.
  6. ↑ quoted from: Opll (2004) p. 246, note 79.
  7. ↑ a b Georg Grüll: The first elephant in Linz. In: Historical yearbook of the city of Linz 1958. Archive of the city of Linz , Linz 1958, pp. 386–390, online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at.
  8. ↑ See Oettermann (1982).
  9. ↑ See: Reitterer (2006).
  10. ↑ See the detailed appraisal of the history of the elephant chair together with numerous sources and detailed photos in Opll (2004), pp. 255–273.
  11. ↑ Elephant chair , photo ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Opll (2004), p. 255.
  13. ↑ Opll (2004), p. 232, note 11.
  14. ↑ Incuria RECTORIS (after Reitterer, 2006 by the carelessness of the nurse ), not: IN CURIA RECTORIS (such Opll, 2004 in the courtyard of / a Rector ); see. Opll (2006), p. 337.
  15. ↑ See Opll (2004), p. 242 f.
  16. ↑ Oettermann (1982), pp. 28-38.
  17. ↑ Laura Stagno: L'hospitaggio a Genova de Maximiliano re di Boemia e di altri Asburgo della linea imperial . In: Genova e l'Europa continentale (Austria, Germania, Svizzera). Opere, artisti, committenti, collezionisti, a cura di Piero Boccardo e Clario Di Fabio . Milan, 2004; P. 117 ff .; Jaroslav Panek: The expedition of the Czech noblemen to Italy within period 1551–1552. A contribution to the history of international relations in the field of culture, politics and finances in the 16th century . In: Historica (Historical Sciences in Czechoslovakia) , 30, 1990; P. 29 ff. According to: Opll (2006), notes 6 and 7, p. 338.
  18. ↑ Opll (2006), p. 341.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 25, 2006 .