In 1514 a failed negotiation over a Portuguese fort at Diu ended with Sultan Muzaffar Shah II gifting a live Indian rhinoceros to governor Afonso de Albuquerque. This episode follows that animal, known in Europe as Ulysses, on a 120-day voyage to Lisbon, the first rhinoceros seen on the continent since Roman times, and into King Manuel I's staged fight against a young elephant that ended when the elephant fled. We then trace the rhino's tragic final journey as a diplomatic bribe to Pope Leo X, chained to the deck of a ship that sank in a storm off Liguria.

The animal's death created an information vacuum that Albrecht Dürer filled from a merchant's newsletter and a crude sketch, producing a woodcut with overlapping armor plates, rivets, a gorget, scaly legs, and a second horn on its back. We explore the theories behind those inventions, why ...