In February 1492 Lodovico Sforza sent Francesco Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua, some particularly fierce lions, accompanied by an expert to instruct the animals’ new keepers in how to handle them. Animals such as these – exotic, valuable, and difficult to keep – were sent between courts along with humans who had specialized knowledge of their training and care. The importance of such specialists in Renaissance Italy has hitherto been neglected. These were experts such as the mahout of the pope's elephant; Ercole d'Este's cheetah trainers in Ferrara; the custodian of the Medici giraffe; or the Florentine handler responsible for trying to stop a lion mauling a fourteen-year-old boy who entered the enclosure. Using archival, visual and literary sources, this article argues that these experts had a central role in court culture, whether they were Europeans or came from the animals’ native lands. In common with hunt- or racing-related professionals, with whom they shared experience of animals, handlers of the exotic were important members of the court hierarchy. They were crucial too in the gift economy and the international animal trade. Handlers can be seen as brokers and mediators between the worlds they traversed. They moved between cultures, transporting foreign creatures and techniques to far-away places; between the collections and expertise available at different European centres; and, at the heart of the skill of the accomplished animal handler, between the realms of human and animal. The handlers’ expertise was predicated on interspecies understanding as they maintained and trained animals through an intimate awareness of the creatures’ requirements and natures. Understanding might be reciprocated too by the animal, not only in a response to training but in interaction and co-operation. The world of keepers and their exotic animal charges in Renaissance Italy thus offers important new insights into inter-relationships of human to human, state to state, culture to culture, and human to animal.

中文翻译：

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种间理解：意大利文艺复兴时期宫廷里的外来动物及其饲养员

1492 年 2 月，洛多维科·斯福尔扎 (Lodovico Sforza) 派曼图亚侯爵弗朗切斯科·冈萨加 (Francesco Gonzaga) 送来了一些特别凶猛的狮子，并在一位专家的陪同下指导这些动物的新饲养员如何处理它们。诸如此类的动物——异国情调、珍贵且难以饲养——与具有训练和护理专业知识的人类一起被送往法庭。迄今为止，这些专家在意大利文艺复兴时期的重要性一直被忽视。这些专家如教皇大象的驯象师；Ercole d'Este 在费拉拉的猎豹训练师；美第奇长颈鹿的监护人；或者负责阻止狮子袭击进入围栏的 14 岁男孩的佛罗伦萨驯兽师。本文使用档案、视觉和文学资源，认为这些专家在法庭文化中发挥着核心作用，无论他们是欧洲人还是来自动物的故乡。与狩猎或赛马相关的专业人士一样，他们与他们分享动物经验，异国情调的饲养员是宫廷等级制度的重要成员。它们在礼品经济和国际动物贸易中也至关重要。处理程序可以被看作是他们所穿越的世界之间的经纪人和调解人。他们在文化之间穿梭，将外国的生物和技术运送到遥远的地方；在不同欧洲中心提供的收藏品和专业知识之间；并且，在熟练的动物处理者技能的核心，在人类和动物的领域之间。处理人员的专业知识建立在跨物种理解的基础上，因为他们通过密切了解动物的要求和性质来饲养和训练动物。理解也可能是动物的回报，不仅是对训练的回应，而且是互动和合作。因此，意大利文艺复兴时期的饲养员世界及其对异国动物的收费为人类与人类、国家与国家、文化与文化以及人类与动物的相互关系提供了重要的新见解。