A History of the World in 100 Objects - Dr Neil MacGregor [188]
One of the new states to emerge in the post-Soviet order is Uzbekistan. As it strives to define its identity it seeks in its past elements that are neither Russian, nor Chinese, nor Iranian, nor Turkish. The banknotes of modern Uzbekistan declare to the world that this new state is in fact the heir to the Timurid Empire: we see on them the mausoleum that houses the black jade monument where Tamerlane and Ulugh Beg lie buried.
There can be no doubt that Ulugh Beg achieved more as a scholar of the stars than as a ruler of his collapsing empire, so perhaps it is fitting that the crater on the Moon named after him is near the Oceanus Procellarum – the sea of storms – storms against which his jade cup might have given him solace, but not protection.
75
Dürer’s Rhinoceros
Woodcut, from Nuremberg, Germany
AD 1515
The tiny island of St Helena, in the middle of the South Atlantic, is famous above all as the open prison of Napoleon Bonaparte, banished there after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. But another great wonder of Europe also once stayed on St Helena – a being much less destructive than the French emperor and one that in the Europe of 1515 was truly a wonder: an Indian rhinoceros. He, too, was in captivity, but in a Portuguese ship stopping off on the long journey from India to Lisbon – a journey that was a triumph of navigation. Europe was on the brink of a great expansion that would lead to the exploration, mapping and conquest of much of the world, all made possible by new technologies in ships and sails. There was intense interest in recording and disseminating this rapidly expanding knowledge through another new technology – printing. All these disparate developments coincide in this object, one of the most famous images of Renaissance art. The Indian rhinoceros, in one respect at least, was luckier than Napoleon: his portrait was made by Albrecht Dürer.
In recent chapters I have been examining objects from four great land empires, all of them controlling huge tracts of the globe around 500 years ago. This object introduces a fledgling maritime empire, that of Portugal. For centuries there had been a steady trade in spices between the Indian Ocean and Europe, but by the late-fifteenth century the Ottomans dominated the eastern Mediterranean and blocked the traditional trade routes (see Chapter 71). Spain and Portugal began searching for new ways to gain access to Asian goods. Both ventured into the Atlantic – a very difficult ocean for long-distance sailing. In the quest for the Indies, Spain went west and found the Americas; the Portuguese went south, down the seemingly endless coast of Africa until they rounded the Cape of Good Hope and made their way into the Indian Ocean and to the wealth of the East. In Africa and Asia they established a slender network of stopping points – harbours and trading stations – and along that network travelled spices and other exotic goods, and also our rhinoceros.
Dürer’s Rhinoceros is a woodcut print, and it shows a massive beast, nicely identified over its head by the word RHINOCERVS, with the date 1515 above and the AD monogram of the artist below. The rhino is side on, looking to the right. Dürer has cunningly framed it to give a great sense of pent up force, packing the body into a tightly drawn frame which only just contains it – the end of its tail is partially cut off and its horn pushes aggressively against the right-hand edge. This animal will try to escape, we think – and it is going to be trouble.
Above the animal in its printed box is a text in German:
[In May 1515] Brought from India to the great and powerful King Emanuel of Portugal at Lisbon a live animal called a rhinoceros. His form is here represented. It has the