How This Revolutionary Old Zoo Was Redesigned for the 21st Century

At the height of his powers in 15th century Florence, Lorenzo de Medici managed to secure a magnificent giraffe for his menagerie. The animal was such a marvel that several works of art depicted its arrival. (Just how grueling and gruesome the transit must have been to the giraffe is lost to history.) For ages, private menageries were the way that people in cities—the upper classes, that is—could see wild animals. Eventually, though, as empires fell, private menageries evolved into municipal zoos, allowing the public, notably children, to marvel at monkeys, creepy crawlies, and lions.

Today, though, zoos are imagined somewhat less positively. Some think that to hold animals captive, for spectacle, can be dangerous and cruel. Which raises