Menagerie
These aristocrats wanted to illustrate their power and wealth by displaying exotic animals which were uncommon, difficult to acquire, and expensive to maintain in a living and active state.
His three menageries, at Aachen, Nijmegen and Ingelheim, located in present-day Netherlands and Germany, housed the first elephants seen in Europe since the Roman Empire, along with monkeys, lions, bears, camels, falcons, and many exotic birds.
At the beginning of the 12th century, Henry I of England is known to have kept a collection of animals at his palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, reportedly including lions, leopards, lynxes, camels, owls, and a porcupine.
In the first half of the thirteenth century, Emperor Frederick II had three permanent menageries in Italy, at Melfi in Basilicata, at Lucera in Apulia and at Palermo in Sicily.
[8] In 1235, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II established at his court in southern Italy the "first great menagerie" in western Europe.
An elephant, a white bear, a giraffe, a leopard, hyenas, lions, cheetahs, camels, and monkeys were all exhibited; but the emperor was particularly interested in birds, and studied them sufficiently to write a number of authoritative books on them.
[10] Later that century, German humanist Hieronymus Münzer spent five days in Lisbon in 1494, and learned about the lions, claiming to be the most beautiful wild beasts he had ever seen.
[12] By the end of the 15th century, the aristocracy of Renaissance Italy began to collect exotic animals at their residences on the outskirts of the cities.
[15] At Vincennes, lions, tigers, and leopards, as well as polecat, minks and weasels were kept in cages around an amphitheater where the king could entertain courtiers and visiting dignitaries with bloody battles.
Situated in the south-west of the park, it was Louis XIV's first major project at Versailles and one of several pleasure houses that were gradually assembled around the palace.
[15] At about this time, the lions, leopards, and tigers from the menagerie at Vincennes were transferred to Versailles, where they were housed in newly built enclosures fronted with iron bars.
[14] This particular enterprise marked a decisive step in the creation of menageries of curiosities and was imitated to some extent throughout Europe after the late seventeenth century.
Monarchs, princes and important lords built them in France (Chantilly from 1663), England (Kew, Osterley), the United Provinces (Het Loo from 1748), Portugal (Belém in 1726, Queluz around 1780), Spain (Madrid in 1774) and Austria (Belvedere in 1716, Schönbrunn in 1752) as well in the Germanic lands following the ravages of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and the ensuing reconstruction.
Another aristocratic menagerie was founded in 1774 by Charles III of Spain on grounds which were part of the gardens of the Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid.
During two centuries, it was a predecessor institution of the modern facilities of the Madrid Zoo Aquarium, moved in 1972 to the Casa de Campo.
Due to its local continuity, the former menagerie established in the medieval through baroque tradition of private wild-animal collections of princes and kings, is often seen as the oldest remaining zoo in the world.
[citation needed] In contrast to the aristocratic menageries, these travelling animal collections were run by showmen who met the craving for sensation of the ordinary population.
[19] In 1834 James and William Howes’ New York Menagerie toured New England with an elephant, a rhinoceros, a camel, two tigers, a polar bear, and several parrots and monkeys.
