Latest / Ridiculous History / An Elephant in the Vatican, Part 2: An Elephant in the Reformation

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An Elephant in the Vatican, Part 2: An Elephant in the Reformation · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. Super producer Casey Pegrum. Can we get an
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Speaker 1: elephant sound effect? A perfect? I mean, it's just it's
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Speaker 1: like I'm It's like he's on the zoom with us magic.
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Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in the Vatican in the hundreds
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Speaker 1: right now. What are we talking about. We're talking about
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Speaker 1: an amazing elephant named Hanno that was the subject of
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Speaker 1: no small amount of speculation. Uh, it'll make a lot
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Speaker 1: more sense if you listen apart one of today's episode,
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Speaker 1: where we ended on quite a gambit nol I believe
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Speaker 1: he called it a pope soak uh that won the
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Speaker 1: heart of Pope Leo the tenth and so now when
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Speaker 1: we pick up today's story, we learned that this didn't
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Speaker 1: just make the Pope titter with mirth once. It actually
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Speaker 1: was the first step on Hannah's journey to becoming the
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Speaker 1: Pope's absolute favorite pets in his menagerie, he said to
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Speaker 1: the elephant, and he said, I think this is the
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Speaker 1: beginning of a beautiful friendship. And it was. Uh. Leo
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Speaker 1: built a special I don't know. The enclosure is what
1:42
Speaker 1: they call it in the church circles. It was you know,
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Speaker 1: probably an ornate cage, let's say. Um. And it was
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Speaker 1: between St. Peter's Basilica and the Apostolic Palace, and it
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Speaker 1: was open to the public, like a free zoo situation. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's funny. I this is probably just a dumb thing
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Speaker 1: to say, but I never think of like the people
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Speaker 1: that live in Vatican City. There's people that live there
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Speaker 1: and it's like a city. Uh this is mr obvious here,
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Speaker 1: but it just seems like that would be a very
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Speaker 1: interesting place to grow up. And you probably pick a
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Speaker 1: lot of history and crazy stuff for granted. Um. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: people were all equally taken by um by Hanno and
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Speaker 1: they wrote flowery poetry was inspired by it him and
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Speaker 1: um he was you know as he started with a
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Speaker 1: procession and the processions just kept going, um, kept coming.
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Speaker 1: He was part of all these parades. Leo the tenth
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Speaker 1: wrote a letter to King Manuel just freaking out, just
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Speaker 1: like over the moon about this elephants and uh, you know,
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Speaker 1: one would imagine that the the gambits of the Portuguese
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Speaker 1: paid off. Yeah. Yeah, just to step back here. Vatican
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Speaker 1: City was never a very populous place in comparison, of
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Speaker 1: course to Italy. Right as of nineteen, I think eight
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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five people live there. The the number
3:09
Speaker 1: saying to eight hundred and one. Thing is you can
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Speaker 1: only live there now if you are clergy or if
3:16
Speaker 1: you are the Swiss Guards who are the police force
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Speaker 1: of Vatican City. All the other people work in Vatican City,
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Speaker 1: like two thousand, four hundred or so, but they travel
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Speaker 1: each day from Italy. It's not a crazy commute. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But when we did that story about the missing girl
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Speaker 1: Vatican City on stuff they don't want you to know,
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Speaker 1: didn't her family live in Vatican City or was that
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Speaker 1: before they changed the rules or what was the deal there?
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Speaker 1: That's a that's a good question. Yeah. I believe that
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Speaker 1: they believe that they did live there, um, but that
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Speaker 1: was also a different times. Now that's the stuff super interesting, Ben,
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Speaker 1: I didn't realize that that had shifted over time, but
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Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense. So right in and let let
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Speaker 1: us know, especially if you live in Vatican City, we
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Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. Where a number of
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Speaker 1: reasons I thought, Casey Noll, I thought you guys might
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Speaker 1: enjoy a brief excerpt of the pope's fanboy level letter
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Speaker 1: to King Manuel about his favorite elephant. He says, uh,
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Speaker 1: just read apart. I wanted us to go along. But
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Speaker 1: he says it was the elephant which excited the greatest
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Speaker 1: astonishment to the whole world, as much from the memories
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Speaker 1: it evoked of the ancient past. For the arrival of
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Speaker 1: similar beast was fairly frequented in the days of ancient Rome.
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Speaker 1: When it's almost tempted to put faith in the assertion
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Speaker 1: of the idolators who pretend that a certain affinity exists
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Speaker 1: between these animals and mankind. The site of the quadruped
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Speaker 1: provides us with the greatest amusement and has become for
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Speaker 1: our people an objective, extraordinary wonder. And that's why they
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Speaker 1: call you ill Papa, my man. I swear you got
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Speaker 1: more and more Italian as that progressed. You started off
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Speaker 1: as almost like a feeble weird bond villain, perhaps with
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Speaker 1: some sort of like bone condition like in the what
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Speaker 1: is it Skype breakable? Oh well yeah different, yeah, yes, sure.
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Speaker 1: Also that were that You're right, that was a thing, um,
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Speaker 1: And then you got mad Italian there at the end.
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Speaker 1: I love it. Um. But yeah, man, this was a
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Speaker 1: big deal. They loved this elephant. The people love this elephant.
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Speaker 1: It served as a very kind of centralized source of
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Speaker 1: joy for all of it encountered him. How know, the
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Speaker 1: albino elephant livening up parties, festivals, ordinarily more serious processions,
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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I believe that Pope Leo
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Speaker 1: even wrote poems himself about the elephant, because you pointed
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Speaker 1: out just a second ago that various movers and shakers
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Speaker 1: in the Vatican we're writing poems. But the Pope himself
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Speaker 1: wrote a poem. And he also, uh, he also wrote
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Speaker 1: a very sad poetic thing about Hanno, which we'll get
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Speaker 1: to not too much of a spoiler. Well, you know,
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Speaker 1: it's about elephant bones. So presumably the elephant does expire
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Speaker 1: at some point. True, Yeah, henno is not around now. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And interesting fact, never himself got to serve as pope.
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Speaker 1: There are a couple of laws or policies the Catholic
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Speaker 1: Church has about that. Now that Cheetah, on the other hand,
6:18
Speaker 1: made out cracker Jack Pope Pope Cheetah. The second which
6:22
Speaker 1: is confusing because yeah, so so uh, let's see just
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Speaker 1: examples of what of what Pope Leo did, because this
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Speaker 1: was like his baby now is literally his pet project. Uh.
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Speaker 1: He had he took a famous contemporaneous poet, had the
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Speaker 1: guy dressed up in old timey Roman clothing and then
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Speaker 1: put him on Hanno's back as part of a parade
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Speaker 1: through the city. But this thing, this didn't go as
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Speaker 1: planned because the this poor guy Hanno, I mean, was
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Speaker 1: not used to all the pomp and fanfare, the trumpets,
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Speaker 1: the banging drums. They scared the snot out of him,
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Speaker 1: and so eventually he reared up and this is you know,
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Speaker 1: this is an elephant, even if it's a young one,
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Speaker 1: and he threw this poet off his back. Another time
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Speaker 1: he stampeded due to cannon fire, he injured some of
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Speaker 1: the people that were clamoring around him. And at one
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Speaker 1: point during a viewing of Hanno, the crowds got so
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Speaker 1: tight that some nobles who were mounted on horseback ended
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Speaker 1: up crushing the regular people to death. What not Hanno's
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Speaker 1: fault an elephant trampling people inadvertently like some sort of
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Speaker 1: adorable Frankenstein's monster. Well, the only fatal trampling was from
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Speaker 1: the horses that the nobleman had. Dang it, that's even
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Speaker 1: more of a bummer. I was hoping that Hannah was
7:48
Speaker 1: went on a rampage at some point in this story. Well,
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Speaker 1: Hanno soon found himself in competition for the favors and
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Speaker 1: affection of Pope Leo because Manuel one is a double
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Speaker 1: down kind of dude, like Walter White. He doesn't go
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Speaker 1: half measure. So he says, I've got the attention of
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Speaker 1: the Pope now, and I really need some help to
8:12
Speaker 1: get some leverage over Egypt and the pressure they're putting
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Speaker 1: on the papacy. So two years later, in fifteen fifteen,
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Speaker 1: Manuel the First sends another animal to the pope. This
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Speaker 1: time it's a rhinoceros. Not impressed. It's debatable, another animal
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Speaker 1: from the land of India, which had been living in Lisbon,
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Speaker 1: Portugal and was part of the menagerie at the Royal
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Speaker 1: Court of of Portugal. And it was, you know, admittedly
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Speaker 1: pretty cool. Rhinos are are very exotic looking, even to
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Speaker 1: this day. I'm not surprised they're still around. They're just
8:54
Speaker 1: like they're like this, like they like nor walls are
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Speaker 1: kind of like too weird to exist, and yet there
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Speaker 1: they are, and yeah. Actually, interestingly enough, the Portuguese would
9:02
Speaker 1: would often uh pit rhinos against elephants in like fights
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Speaker 1: to the death. Did you know about this, Ben, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I know what happened at least once. Okay, maybe it
9:14
Speaker 1: was a one off. But in this particular instance that
9:16
Speaker 1: we know of what happened, well, luckily it ends peacefully.
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Speaker 1: So there's this arena picture of screaming crowd, someone gladoatorial
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Speaker 1: vibe where we are excuse me. So the rhino comes out,
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Speaker 1: and I feel sorry for rhinos, not just because they're
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Speaker 1: so very endangered, but because I worry about their necks
9:36
Speaker 1: when I see them just standing around. It's like a
9:39
Speaker 1: heavy ways the head that wears the horn situation. We
9:43
Speaker 1: got there, we got there. But I gotta say, the
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Speaker 1: thick necks on those guys. Thick necks. Thick necks, thick necks.
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Speaker 1: That's one of the things they're famous for. This rhinoceros
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Speaker 1: sees an elephant in the arena and then it lowers
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Speaker 1: its horn. It starts you know, yeah, yeah, the dude
10:01
Speaker 1: doing the thing with the foot. You know, I never
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Speaker 1: understood what that is, what that functions as the foot thing,
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Speaker 1: the footscrape. It's like it's charging up, you know, like
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Speaker 1: it's a car. But it's not a car. It's a rhinoceros.
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Speaker 1: We'd need Katie Golden back to help us understand that question.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's a warning to predators. Could it's a flex.
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Speaker 1: For sure, it's a weird animal kingdom flex. Let's leave
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Speaker 1: it at that. This intend to attack terrified the poor
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Speaker 1: elephant in question, so much so that this elephant tore
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Speaker 1: through an iron gate, ran back to its stable, and
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Speaker 1: sort of waited to be locked up. Uh. So, this
10:37
Speaker 1: rhino was serious business. It was even more unique, if
10:42
Speaker 1: you can imagine, than an elephant. So in December, the
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Speaker 1: Portuguese forces packed this rhino on a ship. They sent
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Speaker 1: it off toward the Vatican, and the rhino stopped and
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Speaker 1: made a few appearances on the way. There's a pr
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Speaker 1: element to this, as there is to everything. Uh But unfortunately, guys,
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Speaker 1: the ship sinks before it ever reaches Rome. And this
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Speaker 1: one could have survived. This is the tragic part. It
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Speaker 1: could have survived because rhinos can swim. But this one,
11:14
Speaker 1: this poor guy, was shackled to the deck of the vessel,
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Speaker 1: so he drowned. I hate to hear that, and I
11:22
Speaker 1: mean that I hate it. I'm upset you should be,
11:27
Speaker 1: but I'm ready to move on. I'm okay now, biting
11:29
Speaker 1: my lip though he can't he can't see me. Now,
11:32
Speaker 1: I sound like I'm being instince here, but I assure you. Uh.
11:35
Speaker 1: Animal drowning is something that I've frown upon and I
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Speaker 1: think upon. You're not great. I'm glad you're not one
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Speaker 1: of the people generally into the slow, painful death by
11:46
Speaker 1: drowning of animals. No, no, not I uh So the
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Speaker 1: thing is manual. The first is in what we could
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Speaker 1: coldly and literally call a sunk cost scenario, oh r
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Speaker 1: scenario that guys ruined us. Uh. He retrieves the carcass
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Speaker 1: of the rhino. He's already gone to so much trouble
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Speaker 1: and so much expense to get it there, and when
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Speaker 1: he finds it, the corpse washes up on the French coast. Uh.
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Speaker 1: He orders people to stuff it and then mount it
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Speaker 1: and then send it off to Rome. So now they're
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Speaker 1: they're saying, Okay, the Pope is still getting a rhino.
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Speaker 1: It's a creature the likes of which he's never seen before.
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Speaker 1: It's just this one is going to be more of
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Speaker 1: a conversation piece than something you can hang out with,
12:30
Speaker 1: right or at least, you know, hang up on the
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Speaker 1: wall or what it was? It was it like so
12:35
Speaker 1: he said, when you say mount that just means like
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Speaker 1: you could you could taxidermy like an entire creature, not
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Speaker 1: just like the head and put it on the wall.
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Speaker 1: This would be like a free standing taxidermy right now, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I believe so, I mean you could. You could put
12:51
Speaker 1: it imposes perhaps if you wanted, maybe have one uh hoof, yeah,
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Speaker 1: a hoof slightly lifted right, as though warming up for
13:03
Speaker 1: a charge, get a frozen tableau of like terror. But
13:07
Speaker 1: we don't know too much about this rhino. We don't
13:09
Speaker 1: know exactly what happened to the taxidermied rhino. And in
13:13
Speaker 1: the book that we mentioned, part one of this episode,
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Speaker 1: The Pope's Elephant by Silvio Bedini, the author does try
13:20
Speaker 1: to figure out what happened to this hapless rhinoceros. He
13:25
Speaker 1: learns that the Pope sent it to his family in Florence,
13:30
Speaker 1: and until pretty recently it was kept in a museum there.
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Speaker 1: But he couldn't, you know. As he was digging through
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Speaker 1: the museum's papers, uh Bedini could not find a record
13:41
Speaker 1: of the actual rhino carcass. There were rumors that went
13:46
Speaker 1: back and forth about it. Some people claimed a glimpse
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Speaker 1: it in Portugal years later, and so the rhino kind
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Speaker 1: of fades into the the blurred watercolor of time. But no,
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Speaker 1: we do know what happened to Hanno, and it's it's
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Speaker 1: not um it's not a super happy ending, but it's
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Speaker 1: a very weird one. No, I didn't drown chain to
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Speaker 1: the deck of a ship, did it. No, I can't
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Speaker 1: let that go. I really dug myself in a hole there,
14:14
Speaker 1: and I'm just kind of doubling down by bringing it
14:16
Speaker 1: up again. What's wrong with me? But yeah, no, definitely
14:20
Speaker 1: not that, but but also pretty pretty pretty sad tale
14:23
Speaker 1: of woe. Yeah, just a warning, this is a little
14:27
Speaker 1: this is a little graphic, uh nol. You and I
14:30
Speaker 1: were talking, uh off stage, off off air about this,
14:34
Speaker 1: and we figured it would be the right thing to
14:35
Speaker 1: do to give you a little bit of a heads up,
14:37
Speaker 1: just in case this is something that might be triggering
14:42
Speaker 1: for you. So young, Hanno, he's four years old when
14:45
Speaker 1: he arrives in Italy. Uh. The lifespan of his type
14:50
Speaker 1: of elephant, just for comparison, is around forty eight years.
14:56
Speaker 1: You know the lifespan of a hamster has been I
14:58
Speaker 1: do not, but I imagine it's what is it like
15:01
Speaker 1: eleven years, eight years, six or two. Yeah, a hamster
15:06
Speaker 1: purchase is basically like a near future heartbreak. I didn't
15:11
Speaker 1: know this as my kid as this amster, and she
15:12
Speaker 1: didn't know it either, and I found that out, and
15:14
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh no, this hamster is like gonna die soon,
15:18
Speaker 1: not soon, but like in a year. But maybe if
15:20
Speaker 1: we take really good care of it, it'll be the
15:22
Speaker 1: longest living hamster there ever was. But yeah, lifespan of
15:25
Speaker 1: an elephant way longer than life span of a hamster.
15:32
Speaker 1: So imagine Hannah's got forty four years ahead of him
15:36
Speaker 1: where he would be living kind of like an elephant king,
15:39
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. He is the favorite of
15:41
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful people in the land. However,
15:45
Speaker 1: Hannah only lives to be about seven years old because
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Speaker 1: in fifteen sixteen he starts having some trouble breathing and
15:55
Speaker 1: he's clearly not having a good day. He's clearly in
15:58
Speaker 1: pain of doctors are called in because, of course the
16:02
Speaker 1: Pope is very worried about this. His favorite pet and
16:05
Speaker 1: the doctors say, here's the problem this this poor guy's constipated,
16:11
Speaker 1: and we know how to fix it. Yeah. You alluded
16:15
Speaker 1: to this a little bit in the last episode, maybe
16:18
Speaker 1: teased this particular um medical device. Uh, and the I
16:24
Speaker 1: don't know if this was like a thing at the
16:26
Speaker 1: time that the humans were getting too. But these doctors
16:30
Speaker 1: decided that what this elephant needed was a good old
16:33
Speaker 1: fashioned dose of gold in the butt, a suppository, you
16:39
Speaker 1: could call it a gold enema. Where this practical magic
16:43
Speaker 1: idea came from. But yeah, it killed the guy. It
16:47
Speaker 1: killed him dead. Wait is that a reference to the
16:49
Speaker 1: film Practical Magic. I've never seen it. I haven't seen
16:52
Speaker 1: it anither, But I just it just seems like this
16:55
Speaker 1: kind of like magical thinking behind like putting gold up
16:59
Speaker 1: the elephants rectum would uh would cure what ails him,
17:03
Speaker 1: And in fact it did quite the opposite. Yeah. Sadly,
17:08
Speaker 1: these types of enemas were a somewhat common treatment at
17:13
Speaker 1: the time, you know what I mean. It's not like
17:14
Speaker 1: the doctors were just sort of freestyling on what they
17:18
Speaker 1: could do, because we have to remembery, you know, if
17:21
Speaker 1: they didn't do their level best, there might be consequences
17:23
Speaker 1: for them as well. So we know the doctors were
17:27
Speaker 1: really trying to treat him. But surely these goldenemas didn't
17:31
Speaker 1: like kill everyone. Did Hannah just I'm sorry, I'm laughing
17:35
Speaker 1: at the set. Did Hannah just have a particularly bad
17:37
Speaker 1: reaction allergic to gold Perhaps, I know that's the thing.
17:41
Speaker 1: We're We're unclear, but it definitely what it definitely wasn't
17:46
Speaker 1: helping him. It's probably misdiagnosed or something. You know, Medicine
17:48
Speaker 1: then was very different from medicine today for humans, shut alone,
17:53
Speaker 1: exotic animals and so On June eighth, fifteen sixteen, with
18:00
Speaker 1: the Pope of the Catholic Church at his side, heartbroken,
18:06
Speaker 1: Hanno passes away. Yeah. Um, and he got Raphael uh
18:11
Speaker 1: the great artist and my personal favorite Ninja Turtle. I
18:15
Speaker 1: most real into favor Michael Angelo. I'm a Raphael guy. Um.
18:20
Speaker 1: At least in the cartoon he was kind of a dick.
18:22
Speaker 1: In the movie. He was kind of a thick in
18:24
Speaker 1: the cartoons. What are you talking about? Maybe maybe I'm
18:27
Speaker 1: misremembering the Ninja turtles in their interplay between each other.
18:31
Speaker 1: I remember Leonardo was the smart one. Wait, no, is
18:34
Speaker 1: that Donna never Donna. I'm a Donna Tello through and through. Uh,
18:38
Speaker 1: just grow it up as a bookish nerd uh. And
18:41
Speaker 1: then you know, I got a little bit of Leonardo
18:43
Speaker 1: with me. But he's more like the Cyclops of their
18:46
Speaker 1: X Men, you know what. He's like the leader. He
18:48
Speaker 1: takes it for the team at every turn, and Raphael's
18:50
Speaker 1: like the wolverine. Raphael is the rogue. I kind of
18:52
Speaker 1: think I like that about him. And Michael Angelo is
18:54
Speaker 1: just like a stoner. He's a party dude. He's really
18:57
Speaker 1: good with Yeah, but partying in the Nina Turtles world
18:59
Speaker 1: doesn't mean the same things partying in the human world,
19:01
Speaker 1: does it. They just like to eat pizza and goof around.
19:05
Speaker 1: Come man, ah, the nostalgia washes over us. Yeah. So
19:11
Speaker 1: Rafael painting a memorial fresco. Sorry, that's the thing that
19:14
Speaker 1: I was getting to before I went on a Ninja
19:17
Speaker 1: Turtle rabbit hole there. Yeah, Raphael the great Artists painted
19:21
Speaker 1: a fresco in memoriam for Hano, the the Elephant and
19:27
Speaker 1: best friend of Pope Leo the Tenth and the Pope
19:32
Speaker 1: knew what was up with Rafael's work process, and so
19:37
Speaker 1: he said, look, you're gonna paint this fresco, and it
19:39
Speaker 1: needs to be you, Rafael, not your assistant. I know
19:43
Speaker 1: what you've been doing, kind of the same way that
19:45
Speaker 1: Morgan Freeman has that stand in video guy that will
19:49
Speaker 1: impersonate him. You can't afford Morgan Freeman video prices, so
19:54
Speaker 1: he did that. He said it has to actually be Rafael.
19:56
Speaker 1: And it's a pretty Do we know who's picture? Do they?
20:00
Speaker 1: I say, I'm surely it's the Pope who's sitting on
20:02
Speaker 1: top right, he's writing the elephant, and then there's somebody
20:06
Speaker 1: like cradling his trunk unclear, unclear mystery woman, And yeah,
20:12
Speaker 1: I would only have to assume of this is the Pope, which, uh,
20:15
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell with the scale, but it seems
20:19
Speaker 1: like as these he seem really small or really large.
20:22
Speaker 1: Ben I'm I'm the proportions seem a little off, not
20:25
Speaker 1: to not to nag Raphael, but um, it is beautiful
20:29
Speaker 1: and very detailed and a very noble depiction of of
20:34
Speaker 1: this beast. Yeah, sadly the actual fresco was destroyed later
20:40
Speaker 1: during a modernization project, but you can't what what we're
20:43
Speaker 1: talking about is a copy someone made of the fresco,
20:46
Speaker 1: which is why it looks like a drawing. That makes sense.
20:49
Speaker 1: What was a fresco? That's when you're like painting like
20:51
Speaker 1: wet plaster, right, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. Uh, done
20:54
Speaker 1: rapidly watercolor on a wall or a ceiling, and when
20:59
Speaker 1: the reason you do it on the wet plaster is
21:01
Speaker 1: because it penetrates the plaster. It's almost like the art
21:04
Speaker 1: equivalent of like doing the New York Times crossword and
21:07
Speaker 1: pen in a way. Yeah, I think that's It's like,
21:12
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously has a look and it's good for
21:14
Speaker 1: like architectural painting and stuff. But I anyway, um, but yeah,
21:19
Speaker 1: it's it's sad that it did. Guy, I bet that
21:21
Speaker 1: happens a lot things like that, getting lost into history.
21:25
Speaker 1: Um in a city just chuck full of this kind
21:28
Speaker 1: of history. Here's the here's the crazy thing. So there
21:31
Speaker 1: are too crazy things about this one. Uh well, okay,
21:36
Speaker 1: first crazy thing. There's a little bit of mysticism involved
21:42
Speaker 1: here because a little like not too long before Hatto
21:46
Speaker 1: passes away, there was a Franciscan monk who was traveling
21:51
Speaker 1: through the land. He had twenty thousand followers, and as
21:55
Speaker 1: he was traveling through the land, he predicted the deaths
21:58
Speaker 1: of a number of church leaders up to it, including
22:01
Speaker 1: Pope Leo the Tenth. And he also this monk prophesied
22:06
Speaker 1: the death of Hanno and Hanno's keeper, and the elephant
22:09
Speaker 1: died during that time frame. The monk was guessing, so
22:12
Speaker 1: did Hanno's keeper, although people paid way more attention to
22:16
Speaker 1: the death of the elephant than they did to this
22:17
Speaker 1: human being. And then the second weird thing is that
22:22
Speaker 1: and we teased this a little bit when we talked
22:24
Speaker 1: about the poetry. Uh, Hanno was the subject of a
22:29
Speaker 1: lengthy epitaph written by none other than Pope Leo himself.
22:35
Speaker 1: So he's commemorated in this fresco, and the Pope himself
22:39
Speaker 1: takes the day off for a long night to write
22:42
Speaker 1: the epitaph. And I was thinking maybe we could, maybe
22:45
Speaker 1: we could read this and split it up. What do
22:46
Speaker 1: you think, Yeah, yeah, we can do our respective pope
22:50
Speaker 1: papal voices under the Great Here I lie buried my
22:55
Speaker 1: dear elephant, which the King Manuel, having conquered the Orient,
23:00
Speaker 1: sent as a captive to Populio the Tenth, at which
23:05
Speaker 1: the Roman people are marveled a beast not seen for
23:09
Speaker 1: a long time and in my brutish beast they perceived
23:14
Speaker 1: human feelings. Fate envied me my residence in the blessed Lathium,
23:21
Speaker 1: and had not the patience to let me serve my
23:24
Speaker 1: master a full three years unpacked that a lot. I
23:28
Speaker 1: understand what any of this means. It's from the perspective
23:31
Speaker 1: of Hanno. Oh my god, I'm such a dumb Okay,
23:34
Speaker 1: carry on, Ben, thank you for clarifying that good manners.
23:38
Speaker 1: But oh gods, that the time which nature would have
23:42
Speaker 1: assigned to me and destiny stole away. He will add
23:46
Speaker 1: to the life of the great Leo. He lived seven years.
23:50
Speaker 1: He died of angina. He maze your twelve pounds in height.
23:55
Speaker 1: Giovarre Batista r de la Quila. I'm sorry buried the
23:59
Speaker 1: leader a little bit. He died of angina. I love
24:02
Speaker 1: the cause of death is and he's not in Jona.
24:04
Speaker 1: Just like chess pains. I don't think he could die
24:07
Speaker 1: of chess pains. That had to like escalate anyway. Yeah,
24:10
Speaker 1: it's it's it's weirdly specific, and of course we're translating.
24:15
Speaker 1: We're doing it. We're translating live right now from the
24:19
Speaker 1: Pope's Italian pen to our bad Italian voices. Here we go.
24:26
Speaker 1: Previous Chamberlain to the Pope and Provost of the custody
24:30
Speaker 1: of the Elephant has erected this in fifteen sixteen. Wait,
24:34
Speaker 1: that's just what is that? That's just like it's like
24:37
Speaker 1: like a footnote. This is like he's explaining, like, like
24:40
Speaker 1: what the thing was that. This is not in the
24:42
Speaker 1: Pope's voice. So take all that back, but leave it
24:45
Speaker 1: all in. I'll just go. I'll continue. Has erected this
24:48
Speaker 1: in fifteen sixteen, the eighth of June, in the fourth
24:51
Speaker 1: year of the pontificate Leo the tenth, that which nature
24:56
Speaker 1: has stolen away Raphael of Urbino with his art, how restored?
25:01
Speaker 1: Oh my god, such butt kissing both cheeks. I mean,
25:06
Speaker 1: Raphael is a big deal. I get it. Uh. This
25:09
Speaker 1: is really interesting because if we do want to explore
25:13
Speaker 1: a little bit of this, we see that they're acknowledging
25:17
Speaker 1: what's called anthropomorphization, which is when we ascribe human emotions
25:22
Speaker 1: or intellect uh more motives to non human animals. And
25:31
Speaker 1: what's so prescient about this is that whatever kind of
25:35
Speaker 1: interactions the Pope was having with Hanno, they had clearly
25:41
Speaker 1: persuaded him that Hanno was possessed of great intelligence, and
25:45
Speaker 1: later studies over the centuries have found that elephants are brilliant,
25:51
Speaker 1: like they're crazy intelligent. They do a couple of things
25:54
Speaker 1: that very few other animals, including humans, can do, like
25:58
Speaker 1: they seem to be self aware. You can find elephants
26:01
Speaker 1: painting things. There's that one story which is not completely verified,
26:05
Speaker 1: about an elephant rescuer who passed away sadly uh and
26:12
Speaker 1: only for his home and his grave to be visited
26:16
Speaker 1: by all the elephants he had saved, and they went
26:18
Speaker 1: through this journey to come find him. And to this day,
26:21
Speaker 1: again i'd i'd have to dig in and get the details,
26:24
Speaker 1: but to this day, no one knows how the elephants knew.
26:27
Speaker 1: Like it's it's so amazing to me that that fact
26:29
Speaker 1: remains true today the same way it remained true in
26:33
Speaker 1: the fifteen hundreds. And the Pope, who, as you can imagine,
26:37
Speaker 1: has some pretty definitive opinions on what is humanity and
26:42
Speaker 1: what is intelligence and what is a soul. The Pope
26:45
Speaker 1: was like, this is my guy, it's my favorite podcast.
26:49
Speaker 1: Hot takes with the Pope. It's a it's you know,
26:52
Speaker 1: he's definitely got got some opinions that guy. Um, I
26:55
Speaker 1: gotta say it too, Ben, You know the the re
26:58
Speaker 1: the elephants and tell us. I mean, look at that
27:01
Speaker 1: cool trick he did with the trunk man and the genuflecting,
27:05
Speaker 1: you know, and the old and elephant never forgets. Thing
27:08
Speaker 1: is that? Isn't that? Remember? Okay, somewhat spoiler for the
27:13
Speaker 1: Watchman TV series. Maybe fast forward thirty seconds if you
27:16
Speaker 1: don't want to hear this. Um, there's a part where
27:18
Speaker 1: one of the characters is ingested somebody else's memories and
27:23
Speaker 1: has to basically have like a psychic stomach pumping of
27:26
Speaker 1: some sort and wakes up connected to an elephant, and
27:31
Speaker 1: it has something to do. They don't ever explain it,
27:33
Speaker 1: but the assumption is that it has something to do
27:35
Speaker 1: with restoring her memories. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I recall
27:39
Speaker 1: that part. Yeah, elephants have a prodigious memory. And there's
27:43
Speaker 1: another thing we teased that we promised we didn't forget about.
27:47
Speaker 1: Remember we said that Hottle was more than a pet,
27:51
Speaker 1: and Hottle may have played a part in some hugely
27:55
Speaker 1: important religious and political events. It turns out that tragic
28:00
Speaker 1: story of Hano may have been part of the spark
28:04
Speaker 1: that led to the Protestant Reformation, because yeah, because look,
28:09
Speaker 1: Pope Leo is Pope Leo the Tenth is not like,
28:13
Speaker 1: you know, your friendly neighborhood pope these days. By friendly
28:16
Speaker 1: neighborhood pope, I I guess I mean Pope Francis. There's
28:19
Speaker 1: only one pope right now. Uh So. Back in the day, though, popes,
28:24
Speaker 1: as we may have explored in previous episodes, were occasionally
28:28
Speaker 1: very headonistic. I don't want to say depraved people, but
28:32
Speaker 1: they were like party animals in a way that would
28:34
Speaker 1: have seemed pretty hypocritical to your average Catholic peasant who
28:39
Speaker 1: had never visited the Vatican. Pope Leo the Tenth was
28:42
Speaker 1: known for like going on these wild, regular parties every weekend.
28:48
Speaker 1: It's like an episode of MTV Cribs or you know,
28:53
Speaker 1: a music video or Pimp My Ride, perhaps that one
28:56
Speaker 1: with exhibit Yeah, we put the thing in your thing
29:00
Speaker 1: because you like the thing, right, that's the one, Yeah,
29:02
Speaker 1: the thing thing. Um yeah, man, that's fascinating. I told
29:06
Speaker 1: you there's gonna be some political twists and turns brought
29:10
Speaker 1: on by this elephant. So we've delivered on that. I
29:12
Speaker 1: believe we've delivered on gold enemas. Um didn't realize at
29:17
Speaker 1: the time that would be the cause of the tragic
29:19
Speaker 1: demise of our hero Hanno. The albino elephant really quickly.
29:24
Speaker 1: We haven't really discussed this. When we say albino elephant,
29:27
Speaker 1: do we mean like literally like no pigment, like like
29:30
Speaker 1: stark white? Is that how this elephant would have appeared?
29:33
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I was wondering about this too, because there
29:36
Speaker 1: are some um pigmentation differences among elephants in general. I
29:44
Speaker 1: was thinking about this. About one in twenty thousand people
29:51
Speaker 1: have albinism, but about one and seventy people carry the
29:55
Speaker 1: recessive gene that causes it, and so we know they're not.
30:00
Speaker 1: It's not like a distinct kind of elephant. It's not
30:03
Speaker 1: a distinct species. It's just a rare genetic expression, you
30:08
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I say, yeah, oh, yeah, that's
30:10
Speaker 1: what I figured. I mean in terms of yeah, you know,
30:13
Speaker 1: like like what are those uh the Edgar Winter Remember
30:18
Speaker 1: the Edgar Winter group. He was an albino, wasn't yep, yep, yep.
30:22
Speaker 1: He had albanism as well, But man, that guy was
30:24
Speaker 1: a prodigy. I was just it's weird that you mentioned that,
30:28
Speaker 1: because I was listening to that just a few weeks ago.
30:30
Speaker 1: He's a synth lord, was what he is? There we go,
30:38
Speaker 1: this is the thing, though, because the Protestants, for the
30:42
Speaker 1: people will become Protestant Reformers are already angry or what
30:46
Speaker 1: they see is the excesses of the church. The fact
30:49
Speaker 1: that Pope Leo now has especially pet elephant from India.
30:53
Speaker 1: It's named Hanno. It became one of their go to
30:56
Speaker 1: examples of how hypocritical the church have become. And they
31:01
Speaker 1: were like, you know, oh, people are starving being impressed,
31:04
Speaker 1: and this guy with his fancy hat who tells us
31:08
Speaker 1: he's in charge of all religion is out here partying
31:11
Speaker 1: with his elephant. They're entirely disconnected from the real world.
31:17
Speaker 1: And then satirist kind of start um start using that
31:22
Speaker 1: as a bit or as a foundation for for their
31:25
Speaker 1: future works, the same way that UH Saturday Night Live
31:29
Speaker 1: might take a quote from a I don't know, like
31:33
Speaker 1: a dumb quote from a celebrity or a politician and
31:36
Speaker 1: make a sketch about it. That's why you see these
31:39
Speaker 1: German satirist of the time start UH criticizing and mocking
31:45
Speaker 1: the pope for the elephant, which he seemed to genuinely love,
31:49
Speaker 1: by the way, totally no, he really did. He seemed
31:51
Speaker 1: to genuinely heartbroken. And it takes a lot to pull
31:55
Speaker 1: that kind of flowery poetry out of a pope that's
31:59
Speaker 1: not sure they usual we speak pretty flower ely. Um.
32:03
Speaker 1: But yeah, interesting, very interesting and human story because you
32:06
Speaker 1: think of the pope as being this like larger than
32:10
Speaker 1: life kind of you know, uh, lays on to the
32:14
Speaker 1: almighty or whatever, um, god like, maybe not god like,
32:18
Speaker 1: but one you know, is treated as such, you know
32:21
Speaker 1: by followers. Um. And this, even though it's think a
32:24
Speaker 1: totally weird, exotic flexi kind of pet to have, um,
32:28
Speaker 1: you gotta respect the man's love for Hanno the albino elephant.
32:33
Speaker 1: And with this in mind we we reach our epilog.
32:38
Speaker 1: Most of the satirists said that Hannah was dismembered and
32:43
Speaker 1: the bits of his body were handed out to favorite
32:46
Speaker 1: members of the church how to like the relics of saints.
32:50
Speaker 1: But what really happened is that most of Hannoh's body
32:53
Speaker 1: stayed in the Vatican. His tuss which is very brutal,
32:58
Speaker 1: but his tusker is supervaluable, right, so there removed and
33:00
Speaker 1: stored elsewhere. But the rest of him was buried beneath
33:03
Speaker 1: that courtyard where he had lived, the belviture court, and
33:09
Speaker 1: his bones were rediscovered by those construction workers. And they
33:13
Speaker 1: lay there today. What do you mean they lay there today?
33:16
Speaker 1: They're still there. They're still there. They didn't they didn't
33:20
Speaker 1: they didn't disenter them and put them together like a's
33:23
Speaker 1: some kind of cool like elephant like museum piece. That's
33:28
Speaker 1: a that's a good question. So as off the bones
33:31
Speaker 1: were still there, huh. Interesting, I would have thought surely
33:35
Speaker 1: they would have done something interesting with them, like put
33:38
Speaker 1: him in a cool box in the library at the
33:40
Speaker 1: very least. But okay, right on. Good to know. And
33:44
Speaker 1: just because this physical personality had passed away doesn't mean
33:47
Speaker 1: that Hannah's legacy was gone. There were still portraits of
33:51
Speaker 1: him around that circulated through Europe. You can see some
33:54
Speaker 1: in a museum in Oxford today, at least four of them. Uh.
33:58
Speaker 1: You can see all their artistic tributes towards this white elephants.
34:05
Speaker 1: And and you know, it can be a little tricky
34:07
Speaker 1: to speculate the providence of those or what inspired what, uh,
34:12
Speaker 1: but you know, you'll you'll see notable impressions that clearly
34:17
Speaker 1: Hanno made on the culture of the time and the
34:21
Speaker 1: years that followed after his death. In fact, Pope Alexander
34:26
Speaker 1: the seventh was so impressed by a Hanno inspired elephant
34:33
Speaker 1: sculpture designed by jan Lorenzo Bernini, the foremost artists of
34:38
Speaker 1: the time, that the Pope said, I'm going to celebrate
34:42
Speaker 1: Manuel the First and the gift of Hanno that he
34:45
Speaker 1: gave us by saying the following, and he said, every
34:49
Speaker 1: Portuguese citizen who's in Rome right now can drink for
34:53
Speaker 1: free editing public house in town, which is basically a bar. Uh.
34:58
Speaker 1: But that's a legend, and that's spoos that's said to be.
35:02
Speaker 1: This is so weird, and we don't know Italian speakers
35:06
Speaker 1: check us on this, but that is said to be
35:08
Speaker 1: are rumored to be the origin of the Italian expression
35:12
Speaker 1: put the guests to make like a Portuguese, which means
35:17
Speaker 1: idiomatically to show up somewhere uninvited, which I loved. By
35:22
Speaker 1: the way. That's like the opposite of the Irish good
35:24
Speaker 1: bye the Portuguese hello, the Portuguese hello. To make like
35:28
Speaker 1: a Portuguese, make like a Portuguese and come on in,
35:33
Speaker 1: let's stay a while. Um. Yeah. Another another little detail
35:36
Speaker 1: you want to add here at the end is remember Rafael,
35:38
Speaker 1: our boy who painted that fresco. Well, apparently Leo the
35:41
Speaker 1: tenth loved it so very much that he really wanted
35:45
Speaker 1: to make Rafael a cardinal. But unfortunately Rafael expired himself
35:50
Speaker 1: due to a fever caused by a night of sexual
35:56
Speaker 1: excess with his mistress, because very young mistress, and so
36:01
Speaker 1: he didn't have a chance to be cardinalized. Man. That's
36:05
Speaker 1: why I mean the brightest flames burn briefest. I guess
36:09
Speaker 1: if we wanted to say something nice in that regard. No,
36:13
Speaker 1: there There's one question though, that we definitely have to
36:16
Speaker 1: we definitely have to get to, and that is, does
36:19
Speaker 1: the story of Hannah have something to do with the
36:21
Speaker 1: idea of a white elephant party? Uh? Probably not? Uh,
36:31
Speaker 1: probably not. We know it's been used since the eighteen
36:33
Speaker 1: hundreds to refer to something as a less than desirable gift.
36:37
Speaker 1: And you've heard of the phrase white elephant party? Sure?
36:39
Speaker 1: What I hadn't heard of I hadn't heard of them
36:41
Speaker 1: being called the Yankee swap or the dirty Santa, both
36:44
Speaker 1: of which sound like sexual euphemisms. So yeah, dirty Santa.
36:47
Speaker 1: For remember the episode of the Office, he says Yankee swap,
36:51
Speaker 1: but like he he gives away the gift that were intended,
36:54
Speaker 1: like people bought gifts specifically for each other. That only
36:57
Speaker 1: works when you don't do that. Um, if you just
37:01
Speaker 1: buy a generic gift, and then you know you're supposed
37:03
Speaker 1: to only spend a certain amount of money. And of
37:05
Speaker 1: course I think Michael gets an iPod, and uh, everyone
37:08
Speaker 1: wants the iPod. And then of course Jim gets Pam
37:11
Speaker 1: a teapot and it's got special secret you know, love
37:15
Speaker 1: things inside of it. But I far of Michael Scott
37:17
Speaker 1: YANKI swap. And according to an article from New York
37:22
Speaker 1: Times in eighteen seventy three, the phrase white elephant refers
37:27
Speaker 1: to something that's impossible to get rid of but too
37:30
Speaker 1: expensive to maintain. It would be an enormous financial burden,
37:34
Speaker 1: so would make you you would go broke trying to,
37:37
Speaker 1: you know, take care of a white elephant. And that
37:41
Speaker 1: that dates back to this legendary story that white elephant
37:45
Speaker 1: gifts began long ago when the King of Siam or
37:48
Speaker 1: present day Thailand gave an actual white elephant to anyone
37:52
Speaker 1: he disliked. They were rare, they were very expensive to
37:56
Speaker 1: care for. They were also highly respected symbols in time
38:00
Speaker 1: and Buddhist culture, so you couldn't get away with putting
38:04
Speaker 1: it to work like a regular elephant. You couldn't just
38:07
Speaker 1: give it to someone else because it might be an
38:09
Speaker 1: insult to the king. So that's where the phrase white
38:12
Speaker 1: elephant comes from. So Hanno may have been genetically related
38:15
Speaker 1: to this stuff, but he he probably himself, was not
38:18
Speaker 1: the inspiration for the phrase. The case he can, we
38:20
Speaker 1: get one of those like you. The more you know
38:22
Speaker 1: sound cues, and that's it. That's just the wory of Hanno.
38:28
Speaker 1: I want to hang out with an elephant. I don't
38:30
Speaker 1: think I should. I don't think um they should necessarily
38:33
Speaker 1: be kept as pets. But have you guys ever spent
38:36
Speaker 1: time around an actual elephant, like hung out with it?
38:39
Speaker 1: An elephant? They have a zoos sometimes their camel rides.
38:42
Speaker 1: And I definitely in Germany and I grew up and
38:44
Speaker 1: grew up there. I was there till I was six.
38:46
Speaker 1: But I definitely have a distinct memory of writing an
38:49
Speaker 1: elephant and feel like there's a picture somewhere of me
38:52
Speaker 1: on said elephant. How about you, super producer Casey Pigram. Yeah,
38:55
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen him in zoos and I was
38:56
Speaker 1: lucky enough to see a few on safari in South Africa.
39:00
Speaker 1: That's right just outside the car window, and that's pretty
39:03
Speaker 1: impressive site in person. Oh, so there's a good there's
39:06
Speaker 1: a great elephant situation at the Atlanta Zoo. I know
39:09
Speaker 1: people have mixed feelings about zoos, but it's my understanding
39:12
Speaker 1: that most of the animals are all the animals at
39:14
Speaker 1: Atlanta Zoo, like we're kind of rescues and some I
39:16
Speaker 1: don't know, and I'm just like a zoo apologist. But
39:19
Speaker 1: the elephants shore are cute. Yeah. Yeah, I've visited the
39:23
Speaker 1: elephants at the Atlanta Zoo pretty frequently, and I've seen
39:27
Speaker 1: some um elephants in in other places. Uh. You know,
39:32
Speaker 1: one of the big concerns is just to make sure
39:35
Speaker 1: that they are treated well and that their intelligence is acknowledge.
39:40
Speaker 1: But I would man, I'd love to hear people's stories
39:43
Speaker 1: about any firsthand elephant encounters in case. I can't believe
39:48
Speaker 1: I forgot about your afropunk adventures. Best pretty amazing stuff.
39:51
Speaker 1: How long ago was that now that was I think
39:54
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen going into because we were there end of
39:58
Speaker 1: December beating of January. So it's been like almost a
40:00
Speaker 1: couple of years. Yeah. Did you stay for New Year's
40:03
Speaker 1: too and all that? Yeah? Oh yeah, New Year's in
40:06
Speaker 1: and Johannesburgh was really a freaking wild man jealous. Um.
40:10
Speaker 1: I guess that that gets us, that takes us home.
40:13
Speaker 1: I feel like this is a justifiable too partern folks
40:15
Speaker 1: just want to put that out there, not to be
40:17
Speaker 1: a two parter apologist, but you know that's what. I
40:20
Speaker 1: don't think we need to be too apologize. This is
40:22
Speaker 1: a good way and it gave us a chance to
40:24
Speaker 1: talk about elephants. Uh, we've got to do some pope voices. Overall,
40:29
Speaker 1: I had a great time and when we hope you
40:31
Speaker 1: had a good time. To folks, we're gonna sew this
40:34
Speaker 1: up quick because we never knew when Jonathan Strickland a k.
40:38
Speaker 1: The Quister is gonna drop in with you know what
40:42
Speaker 1: you have done? No, no, we gotta we have to
40:44
Speaker 1: go clearly, quickly run through this graveyard. Uh. He would
40:47
Speaker 1: have loved to do some pope stuff. He might just
40:50
Speaker 1: do it anyway. When he comes on, we can't control him.
40:53
Speaker 1: We can only summon him or avoid him. But big
40:56
Speaker 1: thanks to Jonathan Strickland a k. The Quister. Big thanks
40:59
Speaker 1: to you, uh Casey popecast Pegram, Huge thanks to uh
41:05
Speaker 1: Alex Williams who definitely composed our theme. Uh sorry, y'all,
41:09
Speaker 1: it's a it's gonna it's six o'clock on a Friday
41:11
Speaker 1: and I am fading need to uh do the old
41:16
Speaker 1: post work home bound happy hour thing. That's gonna be fun.
41:20
Speaker 1: Christopher hastiots here in spirit and do check out of course,
41:24
Speaker 1: our Pure podcast or Eves Jeff Code This Day in
41:28
Speaker 1: History Class is fantastic. We love the show, we love her.
41:33
Speaker 1: Hope to have her back on the air soon. Let
41:35
Speaker 1: us know what you think. Of course, thank you to Hannam.
41:40
Speaker 1: May he rest in peace. We'll see you next time. Books.
41:49
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
41:51
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
41:54
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.