The Pope's Rhinoceros

“The acclaimed author of Lemprière’s Dictionary furnishes another richly textured romp steeped in history, legend, and excitement.” — Booklist   The Pope’s Rhinoceros is a vivid, antic, and picaresque novel spun around one of history’s most bizarre chapters: the sixteenth-century attempt to procure a rhinoceros as a bribe for Pope Leo X. In February 1516, a Portuguese ship sank off the coast of Italy. The Nostra Senora de Ajuda had sailed fourteen thousand miles from the Indian kingdom of G