Imperial Menageries: Asian Elephants from Ceylon for the Habsburg Court

Annemarie Jordan Gschwend
Visiting Curator Museum Rietberg

Thursday, 10. December 2009
18:30 – 20:00
KO2 F 174
University of Zurich
Karl Schmid-Strasse 4
8006 Zürich

To ease the loneliness of their five year old grandson, Prince Carlos of Spain, King John III of Portugal and his wife, Catherine of Austria, sent him an elephant as a playmate. The young bull born in 1539, most likely in captivity in the royal elephant stables of the King of Kotte, Bhuvaneku Bahu, in Ceylon, was sent as a diplomatic gift to reconfirm a political alliance made with the Portuguese monarchs in 1542. Shortly after October 22, 1549, a special entourage comprising of two of John III’s equerries, two Indian mahouts (nairs) and a gentleman of the court, left Lisbon to accompany this pachyderm, on foot, to Spain, where the young prince resided in the small town of Aranda, arriving there a few weeks later.

If this unusual gift delighted Prince Carlos, the elephant caused great consternation for the Spanish court. Officials were at a loss on where to stable him and how to take care of the beast, even though the two Indian mahouts, specialized in the elephant’s care, remained with him. Expenses and staggering costs were the biggest issue, the other was the cold temperature of northern Castile. The prince’s guardian, Leonor of Mascarenhas, begged the boy’s absent father, Philip II of Spain, and his grandfather, the Emperor Charles V, to move the elephant south to warmer climes, to the royal palaces of Aranjuez or El Pardo.

Instead, the elephant was given away to the prince’s aunt, Maria of Austria, recently married to her Habsburg cousin, the future emperor, Maximilian II, both of whom were returning to Vienna, with their two small children, after having governed as regents of Spain between 1548 and 1551.[nggallery id=17]This is the incredible story of a brave small elephant, who traveled from the jungles of Ceylon to Lisbon via Goa, and then by foot to Valladolid, only to take up his travels again with his new owners to Barcelona, where he embarked on a ship with his Indian mahouts for Genoa, and was almost stolen by French pirates off the coast of France. The next leg of his journey took him over the Austrian Alps, by way of Tyrol (Brixen) to Innsbruck, where he was put on a ship, only to triumphantly enter Vienna on May 7, 1552. This was first elephant ever seen in Austria. The wonder, amazement and sensation he caused was phenomenal. He quickly became the prize attraction and star of the emperor’s new menagerie, at Schloss Kaiser Ebersdorf, just outside of Vienna. Given the sobriquet of Suleyman, this elephant and another sent to Vienna, again via the Spanish court, in 1562, were the true celebrities of their age: Renaissance pachyderm pop stars.