Madrid, Spain, 10 January, 2025 / 2:00 pm (ACI Africa).
During the Jan. 8 general audience held in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Pope Francis and those in attendance enthusiastically enjoyed a circus performance that included acrobatics and the unexpected appearance of two animatronic elephants, which quickly became the center of attention.
The picture of the Holy Father with the elephants inevitably evokes the memory of Annone, a majestic 4-year-old albino elephant from India, who five centuries ago was the pet of Pope Leo X and lived in the Vatican Gardens.
In the Spanish-language book “The Vatican As It Has Never Been Told to You,” journalist Javier Martínez-Brocal narrates the details of the unusual friendship between the pontiff who belonged to the Medici family and this elephant that crossed the seas from Lisbon to Italy as a gift from King Manuel I of Portugal.
Manuel de Aviz gave this imposing animal to the successor of St. Peter to celebrate the beginning of his pontificate. The name Annone referred to the Carthaginian general who in the First Punic War opposed fighting against Rome. Therefore, according to Martínez-Brocal, “it was a poetic way of presenting himself as a cordial ally.”
