[Drawings of birds].
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522 - 1605)
Category
Manuscripts and documents
Date
c. 1600 - c. 1625
Materials
Place of origin
Italy
Collection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 3029482
Summary
Bibliographic description
[141] leaves . ill.. (col.) . fol.. Manuscript on paper, without title page, and consisting of a set of large and magnificently coloured illustrations, in watercolour and gouache, together with 8 blank leaves. 11 of the birds are labelled in manuscript in an early seventeenth-century hand, with detailed references back to illustrations in the works of the Italian natural historian Ulisse Aldrovandi (according to the notes in the hand of Cecil Clarabut, these refer to the first edition of Aldrovandi's Ornithologiae, published in Bologna in 1599). Though now supplied with modern foliation, some of the images carry contemporary numbers in ink; others may have been lost by later cropping, but the survivors imply that there were once more leaves than are present today. Many of the birds are clearly exotic; a few of the images also include fruit and flower, and a variety of animals, including a mole, a bat, and black squirrel (in several cases the adjuncts seem to be present because the adjacent bird is about to eat them). With a small dossier of twentieth-century manuscript correspondence about the manuscript loosely inserted. This includes (1) a letter of 2 April 1951 from the Print Room of the Victoria and Albert Museum; (2) four leaves of manuscript notes of about the same date in an unknown hand, including comparisons of the illustrations with images from Aldrovandi and other sources; (3) a brief note, probably in the hand of the Trust's first Libraries Adviser, Cecil Clarabut.. Binding: Twentieth-century half crushed green morocco binding.
Provenance
Part of the Bristol Collection. The house and contents were acquired through the National Land Fund and transferred to the National Trust in 1956
Makers and roles
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522 - 1605)