atid Extension of the Merino Breed of Sheep. 405 



If any of these sheep preserved the valuable qualities of their ancestors, the 

 xnoUes or Tarentinas, they would probably be the Blanche gentile. But who is 

 there, with knowledge sufficient for the investigation, that has ever made the inte- 

 resting inquiry ? The horn seems still to characterize the sexes ; and, if we may 

 judge from the pictures of Rosa of Tivoli and others, the Merino form remains. 

 But, so far as we know, the delicate fleece has long given place, amidst the revo- 

 lutions of government and taste, to other articles of clothing more appropriate to 

 the feelings of a people fainting under the burning temperature of (hat southern 

 clime. Accordingly we find, among their writers of the nth and 12th centuries, 

 little mention of woollen garments; while they abound with descriptions of those of 

 cotton and silk, variously coloured, and embroidered with silver and gold.* At a 

 somewhat later period, this sort of luxury had so much increased in Italy, that, about 

 the middle of the 14th century, a thousand citizens of Genoa are said to have ap- 

 peared in one procession, clad in silken robes. t 



From these or other causes, the present Blanche gentile are said to bear little 

 resemblance in their most valuable property to the oves molles of ancient Rome ; 

 having long suffered such a deterioration of fleece, probably from the admixture of 

 the hirsutum or hardier breed, as to have descended even below the best of our 

 native races. 



But though it may with tolerable certainty be inferred, that the present Merino 

 breed is similar to the fine woolled sheep of Italy, I can find no direct evidence of 

 the time when they were first introduced into Spain. 



About the beginning of the 14th century, Frederic, son of Peter the Third, 

 King of Arragon, and first of that name of Sicily, who mounted the throne of 

 Sicily on the accession of his eldet br )tner James to that of Arragon, married 

 Blanch, daughter of Charles the Second, Kjug of Naples. About the same time 

 Constantia, or, as others call her, Violanta, sister of Frederic, was united to R6bert, 

 King of Naples, son of Charles the Secojid. This double union of Italy with 

 Spain, the first which I can trace in history, might pDssinly suggest and allow a 

 reciprocal distribution of what was most valuable in each ot those countries. 



It is not, however, in Arragon, that we now fiad the best Merino sheep; and all 

 the circumstances of the history of Spain would lead us to infer their introduction 



* See Muratorii Antiquitates Italiae nieclii xvi torn. ii. De arte textrina, &c. 

 t Robertson's Charles V. vol. i. pige 400. 8vo. 



