1921 OF THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II 339 Another important addition to the text of the De Arte may be due to Manfred, namely the remarkable illustrations found in x the two-book family, but absent from all manuscripts of the second family so far examined. This attribution is perhaps strengthened if we accept Erbach's identification of Manfred with a figure in the Vatican codex, and the close parallelism which he finds with the illuminations of the Manfred Bible. 1 Nevertheless, while the figures in their present form date, like the earliest manuscript, from Manfred's time, I do not believe that he first introduced them into the margin of the text, which it appears from his own words he scrupulously respected as his father's work. We know from Richard of San Germano that Frederick could draw, designing with his own hands the towers of Capua, 2 and it is probable that he at least gave the directions for these illustrations which are almost a part of the text. Probably they were omitted from the'unrevised archetype of the six-book family. Whether due to Frederick or to Manfred, these illustra- tions constitute a document of the very first importance for the scientific observation and the artistic skill of their age. They must be studied in the Vatican codex, 3 save where others of the same family supply missing or injured figures, 4 and few pages lack such embellishments. The figures of the seated emperor and of one who is probably Manfred are Byzantine in pose and treatment, and the background of architecture and landscape shows little advance on the art of the Exultet rolls ; but while the grouping is conventional and quite lacking in perspective, the drawing of birds is extraordinarily lifelike. There are in all more than nine hundred figures of individual birds, not only falcons in various positions, with their attendants and the instru- ments of the art, but a great variety of other birds to illustrate the general matter of the first book. Brilliant in colouring, the work is accurate and minute, even to details of plumage, while the representation of birds in flight has an almost photographic quality which suggests similar subjects in modern Japanese art. Whatever degree of Saracen influence the treatment may show, 5 1 Die Manfredbibel, c. 2. 2 ' Quod ipse manu propria consignavit ' : Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, xix. 372 ; cf. E. Bertaux, V Art dans Vltalie Meridionale, i. 717 ; H. W. Schulz, Denkmakr der Kunst in Unteritalien (Dresden, 1860), ii. 167.
- For references to reproductions, without colours, see p. 336 above. Venturi,
Storia deW Arte Italiana, iii. 758-68, gives some account of the colouring. 4 As on fo. 96 of m> which corresponds to the lacuna between ff. 58 and 59 of M. 6 Venturi suggests the influence not only of Saracen art but of the Vienna MS. of Dioscorides (facsimile edition, Leyden, 1906), but its drawings of birds (fos. 474-83 v ) show no close resemblance to those in the Vatican codex. Erbach, Die Manfredbibel, pp. 1, 47-52, finds parallels with the illuminations of the Manfred Bible. In the face of the close agreement of the illustrations in M and m, the difference of treatment Z2
