Pope's Rhinoceros

The Pope's Rhinoceros is probably Norfolk's most highly regarded book; a beast of a narrative, at once magnificent and monstrous, ranging over several centuries and continents. It concerns Europe itself, from origins in the frozen north to corruption in the sensual south, the tribulations of an obscure order of monks to warfare among the early sixteenth century Italian states. All the while there are political and ecclesiastical machinations. As readers we are enabled to see below teeming surfaces to the warring armies of rats in the Papal sewers, and above to the goings-on in its officials' bedrooms; the slaughter of innocents and the inexorable workings of revenge. It opens with the kind of lengthy and involved description at which Norfolk excels: no less than the geological formation of northern Europe, the evolution of its sea creatures, then the native gods and myths of its first human inhabitants. The narrative moves to the thirteenth century for the folk-myth of the rich city of Vineta that sank into the sea during a storm and siege. The church built on this site, Usedom, collapses more than two centuries later and its monks journey to Papal Rome, whose Pope is a Medici of fabulous wealth and political cynicism. His part in the bloody massacre at the city of Prato is gradually revealed, leading to a spectacular set-piece mock sea-battle at the end, when the Pope's rhinoceros makes a belated appearance. Linking all the subplots together is the journal kept by the monks' leader Father Jorg, depicting Roman life in all its bustling sordidness, and their eventual return home.