Giovanni Giacomo Penni

Who is Giovanni Giacomo Penni?

Giovanni Giacomo Penni was an Italian physician, born in Florence.

There is not much biographical information regarding the origin, life and work of Penni. There are some works attributed to Penni and, the analysis of those same works, seem to picture a man that was in touch with the royal court house and the high society circles of the time.

The frontispiece of his work writes "Forma & Natura & Costumi de lo Rinocerothe stato condutto importogallo dal Capitanio de larmata del Re & altre belle cose condutte dalle insule nouamente trouate"". This work was published on July 13, 1515 and depicts the oldest representation of the Rhinoceros since Roman times, of a specimen known by its Gujarati name of Ganda, precented to King Manuel I of Portugal, by Afonso de Albuquerque in May 1515.

This manuscript is written in gothic and the text displayed is in columns with 8 sets per page in the first five pages and only three sets in the last one. There is only an identified surviving copy of this work and it's held at the Bibliotheca Colombina in Seville, Spain, under the library code signatura: 6.3.29.