SCOT AT TOLEDO 57 



Frederick to join the number of royal authors by 

 publishing a work on falconry. 1 In it he ranges 

 over all the species of birds then known, and insists 

 on certain rarities, such as a white cockatoo, which 

 had been sent to him by the Sultan from Cairo. 

 He thus appears in his own pages, not merely as a 

 keen sportsman, but as one who took no narrow 

 interest in natural history. Clearly the dedica- 

 tion of the De Animalibus and the Abbreviatio 

 Avicennae was no empty compliment as it flowed 

 from the pen of Scot. He had directed his first 

 labours from Toledo to one who could highly ap- 

 preciate them, and to these works must be ascribed, 

 in no small measure, the growth of the Emperor's 

 interest in a subject then very novel and little 

 understood. 



As regards the Abbreviatio Avicennae indeed, 

 we have actual evidence of the esteem in which 

 Frederick held it. The book remained treasured in 

 the Imperial closet at Melfi for more than twenty 

 years, and, when at last the Emperor consented to 

 its publication, so important was the moment 

 deemed, that a regular writ passed the seals giving 

 warrant for its transcription. 2 Master Henry of 

 Colonia 3 was the person selected by favour of 

 Frederick for this work, and, as most of the manu- 

 scripts of the Abbreviatio now extant have a 

 colophon referring in detail to this transaction, we 

 may assume that Henry's copy, made from that 

 belonging to the Emperor, was the source from 

 which all others have been derived. 



1 Printed, but very incompletely, at Augsburg in 1596 in 8vo. 



2 Hist. Dip. Frid. II. vol. iv. pt. i. pp. 381, 382. 



3 Can this' have been Cologna, a village about four miles north of 

 Salerno ? 



