FLORENCE, BEGINNINGS TO UCCELLO 



Those reared by hand ; with finches mean and slight ; 

 And for their chase, all birds the best to fly ; 



And each to each of you be lavish still 



In gifts ; and robbery find no gainsaying ; 

 And if you meet with travellers going by ; 



Their purses from your purse's flow shall fill ; 



And avarice be the only outcast thing." ^ 



Folgore's great contemporary and fellow-poet, the 

 Emperor Frederick II., in addition to being an enthu- 

 siastic sportsman, had some pretensions to a scientific 

 study of the natural history of birds. Falconry was his 

 great passion. 



In the writings of the fourteenth and fifteenth 

 centuries it is frequently referred to as being one of 

 the main interests of the orentleman's life. One of 

 the North Italian playing cards formerly attributed to 

 Mantegna (British Museum Print Room) typifies the 

 gentleman, Zintilomo, by the falcon which he carries on 

 his gloved hand. 



Hubertus Thomas Leodius, the annalist of Frederick 

 Palsgrave of the Rhine (afterwards the Elector Frederick 

 II., born 1483), describing a tour in Spain, says : 

 " King Ferdinand had a passion for this sport (falconry), 

 and was in the habit of taking out with him as many as 

 one hundred and twenty falconers and birds, of which 

 he himself handled always the greater part. Every 



' In Rossetti, Early Italian Poets. 



