The Pope's Rhinoceros

“The acclaimed author of Lemprière’s Dictionary furnishes another richly textured romp steeped in history, legend, and excitement. ” —Booklist

The Pope’s Rhinoceros is a vivid, antic, and picaresque novel spun around one of history’s most bizarre chapters: the sixteenth-century attempt to procure a rhinoceros as a bribe for Pope Leo X. In February 1516, a Portuguese ship sank off the coast of Italy. The Nostra Senora de Ajuda had sailed fourteen thousand miles from the Indian kingdom of Gujarat. Her mission: to bribe the “pleasure-loving Pope” into favouring expansionist Portugal over her rival Spain with the most exotic and least likely of gifts — a living rhinoceros. Moving from the herring colonies of the Baltic Sea to the West African rain forest, with a cast of characters including an order of reclusive monks and Rome’s corrupt cardinals, courtesans, ambassadors, and nobles, The Pope’s Rhinoceros is at once a fantastic adventure tale and a portrait of an age rushing headlong to its crisis.

“An exhausting banquet of a book … One of the most original, energetic, and ambitious novels of recent years. ” —Kirkus Reviews

“Mr. Norfolk’s heady originality and intellectual energy are apparent on every page. ” —The New York Times Book Review

© 2007 Grove Press (Ebook): 9780802199423

Release date

Ebook: December 1, 2007