Medici-Giraffe
The Medici Giraffe reached Florence in 1486 as a gift Al- Ashraf Sayf al-Din Kait - Bay, the Circassian Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, to Lorenzo de Medici. The first giraffe since ancient times in Italy, the animal caused a great stir on its arrival in Florence. It did not long survive. Over the next 300 years there was no further Giraffe to Europe.
Background
46 BC, Julius Caesar celebrated his success in Egypt on his return to Rome with a gigantic animal show, the main attraction was the first giraffe was brought to Europe. The Romans called the animal Kamelopard ( camelopardalis ) because it seemed to them as if they were sharing characteristics of camel and leopard in itself. Caesar made the Giraffe from the lions in the arena tear.
Whether the giraffe of Lorenzo de Medici of Kait - Bay native, is not secure since there are no reports about its origin. In the memoirs ( Ricordanzi ) of Tribaldo de ' Rossi ( published in Florence in 1786 ) there is a record of the Giraffe in Florence with the remark that she was a gift from the " Sultan of Bagdad " was; the Levant belonged in the 1480s to Mamlukenreich. It is known that Sultan Kait - Bay giraffes held in his menagerie; he asked Lorenzo at exactly the time for help against the Ottomans, as the giraffe arrived in Florence, Lorenzo used a short time out for him.
Life
The giraffe was immediately when she arrived to a sensation in Florence. Although Cosimo de ' Medici, Lorenzo's grandfather, a great menagerie possessed and already showed a huge model of a giraffe in the animal show, which he had set up to entertain the citizens, this was the first time that a live specimen in the city on display was provided. There are reports that Friedrich III. a giraffe from the sultan of Egypt received in exchange for a white bear of Sicily in 1261 and that the Duke of Calabria, Ludwig II, Duke Ercole I d' Este had possessed in Ferrara and Don Ferrante, king of Naples, giraffes; if there has been this giraffes, so they had no where near the success of which Lorenzo's giraffe enjoyed.
Lorenzo recognized the possibilities of influencing the disclosure of the animal and announced that the giraffe Anna, Queen of France to send. Although Anne recalled in a letter to Lorenzo his intention to send her the giraffe, she was disappointed. Lorenzo had built special stables for the animals, either at the villa his family in Poggio a Caiano or in the Via della Scala in Florence, equipped with heating, in order to protect them from the wet winter in Florence. However, a short time after their arrival in Florence the giraffe broke his neck and died.
Until 1827 no other living giraffe came to Europe anymore. This year, Muhammad Ali Pasha three European rulers ever made a giraffe as a gift. One was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, George IV, another ruler of the Habsburg hereditary lands, Francis II, and a third of the King of France and Navarre, Charles X. Each caused a stir in London, Vienna and Paris but only the last, Zarafa, survived longer than two years.
Reception
The giraffe Lorenzo de 'Medici was set by artists into the picture and immortalized in poems. So it appears for example in one of the frescoes Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494) 1485-1490 designed for Capella Tornabuoni in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence; accompanied in the Adoration of the Magi. On the same subject was Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) the giraffe in its incurred 1509-1514 frescoes in the church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence occur. Raffaello Botticini ( 1477 - 1520 ), Giorgio Vasari and Bacchiacca they represented in paintings dar. also
The poet Antonio Costanzo described how the giraffe walked through the streets: I also saw how she turned her head to the viewers who watched from the windows as it was eleven feet tall, from a distance it looked as if marveled at the people a tower and not an animal. The giraffe seemed to love the set, she was always peaceful and fearless, it seemed, as she watched with pleasure the people who came to look at her.