With its thick white walls against a wide-open sky, the Château d’If was built under the orders of King François I at the beginning of the 16th century. The fortress was designed with the aim of protecting the French coastline. Few people know it, but surprisingly a rhinoceros was present when this fortress was constructed. In 1516, the ship of Portugal’s King Manuel I was transporting the beast, brought over from Goa to Lisbon, to Pope Leo X. On route to Rome, the ship came into trouble and the passengers disembarked, leaving their ‘gift’ on If Island where it could graze freely. Informed of the presence of this strange animal, François I, who had come to Marseille to see how he could protect the Provençal coast from Charles V, was able to admire the beast. Ever since, the fortress has displayed a reproduction of the rhinoceros as immortalised by the German artist Albrecht Dürer.
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