Menagerie
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Menagerie is the term for a historical form of keeping wild and exotic animals in human captivity and therefore a predecessor of the modern zoological garden. The term was foremost used in seventeenth century France originally for the management of the household or domestic stock, but later primarily for an aristocratic or royal animal collection. The Encyclopédie Méthodique of 1782 defines a menagerie as "établissement de luxe et de curiosité". Later on the term was referred even to travelling animal collections that exhibited wild animals at fairs across Europe and North America.
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Aristocratic Menageries
A menagerie was mostly connected with an aristocratic or royal court and it was thus sited within a garden or park of a palace. The aristocratic menageries have to be distinguished from the later zoological gardens since they were founded and owned by aristocrats whose intention was not primarily of scientific and educational interest. These aristocrats wanted to illustrate their power and wealth, because exotic animals, alive and active, were less common, more difficult to acquire, and more expensive to maintain.
Medieval Period and Renaissance
Already within the Middle Ages, several sovereigns across Europe maintained menageries at their royal courts. The most prominent animal collection in medieval England was the Tower Menagerie in London that began in 1235, during the reign of Henry III. In effect it was the royal menagerie of England for six centuries.
By the end of the fifteenth century, during the Renaissance period, the Italian aristocracy, wealthy patricians and clergymen, began even to collect exotic animals at their residences on the outskirts of the cities. The role played by animals within the gardens of Italian villas expanded at the end of the sixteenth century, for which a remarkable sign was the Villa Borghese at Rome.
Versailles and its Legacy
Image:Versailles M2.JPG During the seventeenth century, when the palace of Versailles was built, Louis XIV of France also erected a menagerie within the palace’s park. Most of which was constructed in 1664, when the first animals were introduced, although the interior fittings were not finished until 1668-70. 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. It represented the first menagerie according to Baroque style. The prominent feature of Baroque menageries was the circular layout, in the middle of which stood a beautiful pavilion. Around this pavilion was a walking path and outside this path were the enclosures and cages. Each enclosure had a house or stable at the far end for the animals and was bounded on three sides with walls. There were bars only in the direction of the pavilion. This design was adopted by many other monarchs across Europe, particularly by the Habsburg monarchy in Austria. In 1752 Francis I erected his famous Baroque menagerie in the park of Schönbrunn Palace near Vienna.
In the nineteenth century the aristocratic menageries were displaced by the modern zoological gardens with their scientific and educational approach. Today the only still existing menagerie is that of Schönbrunn. But in the twentieth century it evolved into a modern zoological garden with scientific, educational and conservationist orientation. Due to its local continuity the Vienna Zoo, the formerly menagerie, is often seen as the oldest (still existing) zoo of the world. Although many of the old enclosures according to Baroque design have been changed, one can still obtain a good impression of the symmetrical ensemble of the formerly imperial menagerie.
References
- Daniel Hahn: The Tower Menagerie, London 2003. ISBN 0743220811
- Eric Baratay, Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier: A History of the Zoological Gardens of the West, London 2002. ISBN 1861891113