Menagerie

The Menagerie is a historical form of animal husbandry and as such, the precursor to the zoo, which developed in the course of the 19th century. The term comes from the French menagerie and is borrowed from the rural vocabulary, occupied as a term for a courtly animal husbandry since the 17th century. The Encyclopédie méthodique from 1782 Menagerie defined as " établissement de luxe et de curiosité ". It was only later the term was also traveling exhibitions (traveling menagerie ), that pass over the country and made ​​guest appearances at fairs, transferred.

Courtly menageries

A courtly menagerie was attached directly to the court of an aristocrat or a ruler. So it was mostly in the garden of a larger property or similar pheasantries and orangeries in a park.

The courtly menageries differ from zoological gardens in that they were worn by nobility and not primarily oriented scientific. They were used for demonstration of power or wealth, and gave the noble society of the possibility of distraction. Only occasionally they were also to places of scientific studies. Zoological gardens, however, were in most cases foundations of the bourgeoisie and were worn by officers, who represented a scientific and educational claim.

In the Middle Ages there was courtly menageries. The most significant was the royal menagerie in the Tower of London, which in 1235 under Henry III. of England (1207-1272) began, including an elephant. In the 16th century, the Italian aristocracy began to hold in the gardens of their residences on the outskirts of cities exotic animals. Above all this, the Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli of Villa Borghese (1576-1633) in Rome. The game reserve King Manuel I of Portugal in the castle of Ribeira in Lisbon marveled at the beginning of the 16th century in Europe because of the colossal pachyderm that Manuel used to import from India and from which the elephant Hanno and Dürer's rhinoceros as gifts to Pope Leo X. became famous.

To a veritable bloom came the menageries since Louis XIV (1638-1715) 1662 was to develop a complex of enclosures for exotic animals the hunting pavilion in the park of Versailles, where he also held a rare elephants 1668-1681. This designed in a symmetrical rondelle baroque complex was the model for many other courtly menageries for the 1752 resulting menagerie in the park of Schönbrunn. It is the only remaining menagerie, which has now developed into a scientifically oriented zoo. Due to its local continuity of today's Tiergarten Schönbrunn is often referred to as the oldest zoo in the world.

Courtly menageries but followed in their architecture is not necessarily just the French model, but later menageries originated in the English garden style, such as the menagerie of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. (1770-1840) on Peacock Island in Berlin -Wannsee. However, the passion of many princes for the keeping of exotic animals decreased with time. Even with the rise of the bourgeoisie, the courtly menageries were gradually displaced and civil zoological gardens took their place.

Traveling menageries

→ Main article: Hiking Menagerie

Since about the mid-18th century, moved to central Europe called menageries traveling with their animal stalls from place to place and satisfied the sensationalism of the population, they offered by these exotic animals on display. The traveling menageries have to be distinguished from the courtly menageries. Your operator that Menageristen, were part of the traveling people and thus to the social outcasts. Only later some came by their menageries to prestige and wealth. Some of them performed even large animals like elephants or giraffes with and excited by the attention of the population who did not know such animals. One of the most important hiking menageries in Europe in the first half of the 19th century, the Dutch brothers van Aken. The performances of the Berlin animal showman Garnier were known throughout Europe, than in the years 1819 and 1820 two elephants were killed from his menagerie by cannonballs. The elephant Baba for example, was 1824-1840 so popular that the traveling menageries paraded their pachyderms sometimes under the same name. In the U.S., Van Amburgh menagerie came to great fame, especially since it was one of the few who survived the American Civil War ( 1861-1865). End of the 19th century made ​​PT Barnum elephants Jumbo with a tour of the United States, world famous.

Menageries today

Especially the courtly menageries are a historical phenomenon and as such no longer in function. This historical form of animal husbandry has become completely modern zoos - have been replaced - both in their programmatic orientation and in its architectural appearance. In Versailles, for example, the architectural remains and the architectural floor plan are just too besichten in the park of the Château de Versailles. While on the Peacock Island in Berlin there are still individual aviaries, but the royal Prussian Menagerie is no longer in its entirety. Alone at the zoo in the past ( the modern zoo animal husbandry adapted ) Menagerie buildings continue to be held exotic animals. His name, his self-image and also the definition of a zoo after he is now a scientifically oriented Zoologischer Garten and no more courtly menagerie. Nevertheless, the baroque ensemble can still give a good impression of the architecture of courtly menageries modeled after Versailles.

A single institution bears the name " Menagerie" today. This is the Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris, which however is already within, from their creation to the modern, middle-class zoological gardens. So it was in 1793 as the founding of the bourgeoisie and offered well-known scientists the opportunity to explore exotic animals.