4to. cx, 637 pp., colour frontis, half title, title, original green cloth with gilt decoration on spine, double column text, 186 illustrative plates, biblio, glossary in Latin and English, light foxing on end papers, copy in very good condition otherwise, Stanford University Press, California, reissued in 1961.

Synopsis

A definitive work on falconry and ornithology written in the 1240s by Frederick II (1194-1250), Holy Roman Emperor. With extensive introductory material and appendices by the Canadian ophthalmologist and comparative zoologist C. A. Wood (1856-1942), who studied animal vision, especially that of birds, and was first published in 1943 by Stanford University Press… This book contains the manuscripts and editions of the De Arte Venandi Cum Avibus, as well as six books on the art of falconry. There is evidence to prove that falconry was familiar to the people of China, India, Assyria, Sumeria, and other provinces of Babylon, Egypt, and Persia thousands of years before Rome came into existence.