Sixteenth-century Portuguese monarchs, with their possessions in Africa, India, and Brazil, were particularly well situated to amass collections of exotic animals and to form dazzling menageries that were the outdoor equivalents of the Kunstkammer. Parrots, civet cats, and elephants were collected by the Habsburg princess Catherine of Austria (1507–78), Queen of Portugal and sister of Charles V (1500–58). These animals, not seen before in Europe, were symbols of power and prestige and Catherine presented them as gifts to her extended family across the Habsburg Empire.

Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, who is part of the team of Getty scholars who have investigated the inventories of the Habsburgs (Juan Luis González García, ed., Los inventarios de Carlos V y la familia imperial [2010]), begins with the development of royal menageries and the arrival of a one-horned rhinoceros at the court of Manuel I (1495–1521) in Lisbon in 1515. In the same year Albrecht Dürer produced a woodcut based on a drawing he had received of the rhinoceros, and the large edition of approximately 5,000 prints flooded the European market. Durer's image was among the first of the illustrations to represent previously unknown animals in Europe.

Manuel I, the first European monarch to collect elephants, knew well the global power and wisdom that the possessions of these animals suggested when he rode one of them from the Lisbon royal palace to the cathedral in a procession of five elephants. During the sixteenth century, at least thirteen Asian elephants were exported to Portugal, among them the rare white elephant known as Hanno, documented in a drawing by Raphael, and presented in 1514 to the Medici Pope Leo X as a gift for his coronation.

Catherine of Austria continued what Manuel I had begun in collecting rare birds and animals in the Portuguese court of John III (1502–57), who as the son of Manuel I continued in the tradition of aristocratic collections. Catherine used the court's global network and extensive financial resources to secure the most spectacular examples of exotic species available, thereby creating a monopoly of the markets, and acting as the figure to whom her Habsburg relatives appealed for acquisitions. She housed her own collection in the garden of the Lisbon royal palace, including a spotted cheetah, which she tamed and displayed for court festivities. To complement her menagerie, she planted newly discovered bulbs and plants in the botanical garden in Lisbon, including tobacco and chili imported from the Americas and Asia. She watched the market with care, and used her power to consolidate her official position at court, to promote herself, and to advance her personal taste.

Süleyman's journey from Ceylon to Portugal, Spain, and eventually to Vienna is recorded in chapter 2. The elephant was probably named after the Turkish sultan who was the archenemy of the Habsburgs. The elephant's voyage from one royal owner to another was long and hard, and over the eleven years that he was owned by royal courts, he traveled over 9,300 miles. His travels attest to the complex family relations of the Habsburgs, and to the emotional attachments of its individual members. For seven years he was in Lisbon at the Portuguese court. In 1549 he was guided overland to Spain, where he was presented as a gift for Prince Carlos (1545–68). A doting grandmother, Catherine offered the gift to ease the child's loneliness and ill health. Soon, however it was seen that the elephant was too costly to maintain. The climate near Burgos was too cold, feeding him was expensive, and a series of alarming letters to the child's father, Philip II (1527–98), from his head of household reveal the near panic of economic distress that the growing elephant caused. After two years, a solution was found. Archduke Maximilian II (1527–76) transported him along with his Indian handlers to Austria. The elephant died two years later.

While royal menageries and the power to impress is the central topic of the book, one wishes for further development of the intricate and often delicate personal relations between royal houses, especially the role that Catherine of Austria fashioned for herself. She was forceful, ambitious, and the mother of nine children, all but two lost in infancy. One wonders whether the impact of these personal events may have determined the ferocity of her desire to collect and distribute the animals that she placed across Europe.

The forty-nine-page text is accompanied by the thirty-nine handsomely illustrated images with annotations that are useful for scholars whose interests include visual documentation of portraits of the Habsburgs, sixteenth-century representations of elephants, and other non-European animals in various media, including prints, drawings, and sculptures by major European artists. A genealogy showing links between the Catholic Kings of Spain and the Habsburgs is included.