ANIMAL LIFE IN ITALIAN PAINTING 



significant proof of the widespread interest in natural 

 history," says Burckhardt, " is found in the zeal which 

 showed itself at an early period for the collection and 

 comparative study of plants and animals." ^ 



In reviewing the way in which animals were treated 

 by different painters, several methods might be adopted. 

 The pictures might be divided into sections according to 

 subject — religious, sporting, and mythological. They 

 might be grouped according to a strictly zoological 

 method ; or in chronological order. The second 

 method would be most convenient if the painter had 

 confined himself to one species in one picture, but in 

 many cases he did not, including instead a small 

 menagerie, and its advantages seemed to be neutralised 



intelligently and carefully described, at once suggests the incentive his 

 book would be to a naturalistic temper — ape, monkey, lion, tiger, leopard, 

 cheetah, lynx, elephant, rhinoceros, camel, giraffe, buffalo, reindeer, fallow 

 deer, musk deer, roebuck, goat, yak, bear, wolf, fox, hare, ermine, marten, 

 marmot, ancoli?ii; peregrine falcon, gerfalcon, vulture, stork, swan, heron, 

 crane, crow, pheasant, partridge, quail. 



Jordanus of Severac, the French Dominican, who with three Italian 

 Franciscans landed in India in 1321, describes the elephant, rhinoceros, 

 lynx, flying fox and squirrel, bandicoot, white mice, kite, peacocks, parrots 

 and other birds, crocodile and white ant. " The worthy friar appears as a 

 true zoologist, with a genuine if but half-awakened capacity for the study of 

 nature." — C. R. Beazley, The Dawn of Moder?! Geog7-aphy^ vol. iii. pp. 225-6. 



Other Indian travellers had been John of Monte Corvino and Nicholas 

 of Pistoia (1291-2), and Ricold of Monte Croce (1242-1320) had covered in 

 his missionary itineraries a good deal of Asia. 



^ Jacob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien. Translation 

 by S. G. S. Middlemore, 1890, p. 292. 



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