SOME INFLUENCES 



Lord" — and Mr. Coulton says that "from the time of 

 the general chapter of Narbonne at least (1260) it was 

 a strict rule that no animal be kept, for any brother 

 or any convent, whether by the Order or by some 

 person in the Order's name, except cats and certain 

 birds for the removal of unclean things,"^ 



The third factor, less marked but well recognisable, 

 is the remembered and recovered literature and art 

 of ancient Rome and Greece. Virgil, the naturalistic 

 poet of the Georgics, had a place in the Commedia as 

 well as Francis. The Metamorphoses of Ovid and 

 the Idylls of Theocritus are painted out upon acres of 

 wall and panel. The Golden Age as imagined in the 

 Fourth Eclogue, when all creatures should live at peace, 

 and none should hurt nor destroy, struck a responsive 

 chord in men's hearts. We shall see some of the scope 

 which the illustration of ancient thought gave to the 

 painting of animals. 



These three influences will be found working along- 

 side a general curiosity about nature and the varied 

 manifestations of animal life which had been stimulated 

 by the experiences of the Crusades, the Levant trade, 

 missionary expeditions, and voyages of discovery.- " A 



' G. G. Coulton, Front St. Francis to Dante, 2nd ed., 1907, p. 90. 



^ Marco Polo (1254-1324) gave to Europe a real knowledge of Asia and 

 its fauna, as well as much new information about that of Africa. A mere 

 list of the animals and birds mentioned by him, many of them being 



7 



