Giovanni Giacomo Penni was an Italian physician, born in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

.

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

Book frontispiece

A frontispiece is a decorative illustration facing a book's title page. The frontispiece is the verso opposite the recto title page. Elaborate engraved frontispieces were in frequent use, especially in Bibles and in scholarly books, and many are masterpieces of engraving...

 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"" (The Shape, the Nature and the Way of the Rhinoceros brought by the Captain of the Portuguese King's Armada and other beautiful things brought from the new insulars). This work was published on July 13, 1515 (about 10 cm x 9,5 cm) and depicts the oldest representation of the Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....

 (Dürer's Rhinoceros

Dürer's Rhinoceros

Dürer's Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut executed by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515. The image was based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year. Dürer never saw the...

) since Roman times, of a specimen known by its Gujarati

Gujarati language

Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...

 name of Ganda, precented to King Manuel I of Portugal

Manuel I of Portugal

Manuel I , the Fortunate , 14th king of Portugal and the Algarves was the son of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu, , by his wife, Infanta Beatrice of Portugal...

, by Afonso de Albuquerque

Afonso de Albuquerque

Afonso de Albuquerque[p][n] was a Portuguese fidalgo, or nobleman, an admiral whose military and administrative activities as second governor of Portuguese India conquered and established the Portuguese colonial empire in the Indian Ocean...

 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

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, under the library code signatura: 6.3.29(32)).

This surviving copy is absolutely marvellous because, along to the fact of being one of the kind, it contains the handwriting and signature of Fernando Colón

Fernando Colón

Ferdinand Columbus was the second son of Christopher Columbus. His mother was Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, whom his father never married, but who was Columbus' constant companion in later life.-Biography:Fernando was born in Córdoba, Spain, and spent his early years there with his mother...

. Apparently he had purchased the book and, on the bottom of the last page of the text, he took note of the date and the place of his acquisition: "Este libro costó en Roma medio quatrain por nouiembre de 1515 / Esta registrado 2260" followed by his signature. (English: This book cost, in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, a half a quarter in November of 1515 / It’s registered 2260). The last page prints "Impresso in Roma in casa de maestro Stephano Guilireti a di tredici de Lu ion el mille e cinquento e quindici. Jo. Ja. De Pennis faciebant Rimas".
Stephano Guilireti was the printer of the Penni’s work about the Portuguese rhinoceros or "Ganda" like it was called at the time.

As a physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 we do not know the talents of Penni, but as a writer or poet we can say that he wasn't very gifted. The lack of talent is so notorious that Penni, himself, mentions it at the last poem (the XXI poem) on the Rhinoceros pamphlet (at left the original text and at the right the English translation):

Dirá qualcun che questi versi a caso Someone will say that these verses casually
si sieno stati fatti e senza ingegnio have been done and without any genius
e ch'io vituperi le muse e l'pegaso and that I insult the great Muses and Pegasus
mostrando vile et inetto il mi' egegnio showing my vile and ineptitude ingenious
(....)continua (...) continues

We can also notice that the poem was published only two months after the arrival of the rhinoceros at Lisbon. Since the European communications at 1515 were very precarious this is extremely strange. This strange facts is more dubious when we discovered another pamphlet (with 8 pages), published in Rome at the same time, intituled The Form, Nature and Habits of The Elephant, probably published regarding Hanno

Hanno (elephant)

Hanno was the pet white elephant given by King Manuel I of Portugal to Pope Leo X at his coronation. Hanno, actually an Asian elephant, came to Rome in 1514 with the Portuguese ambassador Tristão da Cunha and quickly became the Pope's favorite animal...

, Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X , born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses...

's elephant, a gift of King Manuel I of Portugal on the Pope's coronation, a couple of years before.

This pamphlet also haves a rudimental woodcut of an elephant. And, like in the Rhinoceros pamphlet, there is only one surviving copy of the Elephant pamphlet.
We can also see, when reading the Penni's poemmeto, that there are some fundamental historical inaccuracies. These 3 factors may lead some investigators to concluded that Penni have somehow copied the work regarding the Elephant pamphlet, of an unknown artist and adjusted it to the rumours, not all correct, that were spreading in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

regarding the Portuguese "Ganda".