The manuscript

These birds sit on a page from Emperor Frederick II’s book, De arte venandi cum avibus (The Art of Hunting with Birds). The manuscript was written between 1241 and 1244 and is a translation of two Arabic texts about falconry. Historical sources tell us that Frederick II was fluent in Arabic.

He supported the development of scholarship and knowledge at his court, and the manuscript was most likely compiled in this context. The manuscript contains over 900 illustrations, of which five can be seen on this page.Heather Dalton, Jukka Salo, Pekka Niemelä and Simo Örmä, “Frederick II of Hohenstaufen’s Australasian cockatoo: Symbol of detente between East and West and Evidence of the Ayyubids’ global reach.”, Parergon 35/1 (June 2018): 36