by Lawrence Norfolk · Editorial Anagrama · tapa dura · ISBN 9788433908582
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In February 1516, a Portuguese ship sank off the coast of Italy, taking its entire crew with it. This ship, the Nossa Senhora da Ajuda, had sailed from the Indian kingdom of Gujarat with a singular mission: to deliver a rhinoceros to the Pope. 'The Pope's Rhinoceros' recounts the stories that converge in this peculiar event. Salvestro, a former mercenary who fled the wars south of the Alps, returns to his home on the Baltic island of Usedom. There, a group of monks plans a pilgrimage that will take them, along with Salvestro, across the Alps to Rome, where Leo X, a Pope who loves pleasures, exercises his reign.
In the papal court, the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain compete for the pontiff's favor, awaiting his arbitration for the division of the newly discovered New World. A rhinoceros, a creature never before seen in Europe since antiquity, seems to be the perfect gift to win the Pope's sympathy. Lawrence Norfolk's novel transports us from the Baltic Sea to India, and from West Africa to Tuscany, reconstructing the history of this rhinoceros as a reflection of the fantasies and obsessions of the Renaissance.
Lawrence Norfolk is a British novelist known for historical works with complex plots and intricate detail.
