The Indian elephant that captivated the Pope and lived in the Vatican gardens

At the General Audience held in the Paul VI hall of the Vatican, Pope Francis and the faithful enthusiastically enjoyed a circus show in which there was no shortage of acrobatics and the unexpected appearance of two animatronic elephants, which soon became the center of all eyes.

The image of the Holy Father tenderly caressing one’s trunk inevitably evokes the memory of Annone, a majestic four-year-old albino elephant from India, which five centuries ago was the pet of Pope Leo X and lived in the Vatican gardens. .

in the book The Vatican as you have never been told about it, The journalist Javier Martínez-Brocal narrates the details of the unusual friendship between the pontiff of the Medici family and this elephant that crossed the seas from Lisbon to Italy as an offering from King Manuel I of Portugal.

Manuel de Aviz gave this imposing animal to the successor of Saint Peter to celebrate the beginning of his pontificate. The name Annone referred to the Carthaginian general who opposed fighting against Rome in the First Punic War. Therefore, according to Martínez-Brocal, “it was a poetic way of presenting himself as a cordial ally.”

Members of the curia and Roman citizens crowded the streets to witness the arrival of Annone, who was received by the pope himself near Castel Sant’Angelo. In a carefully prepared reception, and after receiving the signal from his trainer, the elephant knelt three times before Leo X.

Then, the animal filled its trunk with water and threw it on the cardinals and the people, causing laughter and applause. The elephant became a symbol in Rome, paraded in processions and special events, although only the pontiff’s most trusted men were allowed to approach it.

He lived in the Vatican gardens, in the Belvedere area, although he later moved to an enclosure in the passageway that connects Castel Sant’Angelo with the Vatican. Annone died two years after his arrival due to angina. The story goes that Leo X himself accompanied him in his last moments and that he was buried in the Cortile del Belvedere, a complex of buildings north of St. Peter’s Basilica.

His memory was honored by the pontiff himself, who even composed an epitaph about him. Even the famous painter Raphael, whose workshop was near where the animal lived, immortalized the white elephant that amazed Rome in at least four sketches.

The monk Fra Giovanni da Verona also painted a drawing of the pachyderm that can today be seen in the Vatican museums, in one of Raphael’s rooms. Annone also inspired the American historian Silvio Bedini, author of the book The Pope’s Elephant.

A year after Annone’s arrival in Rome, Manuel I of Portugal presented the pope with another exotic animal. It was Ganda, a rhinoceros from India that he had received as a gift from a Gujarati sultan.

But Rome never saw Ganda, since the ship carrying him was wrecked near Genoa. However, his fame spread throughout Europe thanks to the sketches that artists made with the descriptions of those who had seen him. One of the best-known sketches is that of the German painter Albrecht Dürer, who immortalized the animal without ever having seen it.