Suleiman the Magnificent
At the time of Suleiman's death, the Ottoman Empire was one of the world's foremost powers. Suleiman's conquests had brought under the control of the Empire major Muslim cities (such as Baghdad), many Balkan provinces (reaching present day Croatia and Hungary), and most of North Africa. His expansion into Europe had given the Ottoman Turks a powerful presence in the European balance of power. Indeed, such was the perceived threat of the Ottoman Empire under the reign of Suleiman that Austria's ambassador Busbecq warned of Europe's imminent conquest: "On [the Turks'] side are the resources of a mighty empire, strength unimpaired, habituation to victory, endurance of toil, unity, discipline, frugality and watchfulness ... Can we doubt what the result will be? ... When the Turks have settled with Persia, they will fly at our throats supported by the might of the whole East; how unprepared we are I dare not say." Suleiman's legacy was not, however, merely in the military field. The French traveler Jean de Thévenot bears witness a century later to the "strong agricultural base of the country, the well being of the peasantry, the abundance of staple foods and the pre-eminence of organization in Suleiman's government".
Suleiman (elephant)
Suleiman was transported from the Portuguese colonies Kotte in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Goa in India to Lisbon, and then to Valladolid, then the capital of Spain. Accompanied by Maximilian, his wife and their two children, and their attendants, Suleiman was shipped from Barcelona to Genoa, where he arrived on 12 November 1551, and then traveled overland via Milan, Cremona and Mantua. He reached Trent, where the Council of Trent had just finished meeting, on 13 December. He crossed over the Brenner pass to enter Austria, where he was transported along the River Inn and Danube to Vienna. He reached Innsbruck on 6 January for the feast of the Epiphany, and Wasserburg on 24 January 1552. The procession entered Vienna on 6 March 1552. A wave of "elephant enthusiasms" followed, and Suleiman was a popular subject for artists and poets. Suleyman was installed in the menagerie at Schloß Kaiser-Ebersdorf, but died only 18 months later, in December 1553.
Maximillian had a commemorative medallion issued after Suleiman's death to a design by sculptor Michael Fuchs. Parts of Suleiman's carcass were distributed around the Holy Roman Empire. His front right foot and part of a shoulderblade were given to the mayor of Vienna, Sebastian Huetstocker; the bones were fashioned into a chair that currently resides at the Kremsmünster Abbey. The elephant's skin was stuffed and exhibited in Kaiserebersdorf until Maximillian, as Emperor, presented it as a gift to Albert V, Duke of Bavaria, in 1572. The stuffed pachyderm survived for centuries in the Wittlesbach royal collections and Kunstkammer in the Munich Residenz.