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Copyright of Atti della Società dei Naturalisti e Matematici di Modena is the property of Societa dei Naturalisti e Matematici di Modena and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Atti della Società dei Naturalisti e Matematici di Modena is the property of Societa dei Naturalisti e Matematici di Modena and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Bible of Borso d'Este, masterpiece of Ferrarese book illumination, is one of the manuscripts most opulent in its decoration. The main source of inspiration for this ornamentation was nature: many animals are included in the vignettes and friezes that frame the text. The artists gave free rein to their imagination in inventing fantastic or hybrid animals, for example figures with part human and part animal body with clear mythological references, which it is not our purpose to examine here. No less than c. 1,450 images of natural fauna, i.e. animals that really exist in nature, have been identified in the illuminations of the Bible; of these 91 are invertebrates and 1,363 vertebrates. As emerges from an analysis of the data, the most common among the vertebrates are mammals (791 examples, equivalent to just over 50% of the total), followed by birds (563 examples, c. 39%). Relatively rare, on the other hand, are fishes and reptiles, which altogether do not exceed 1% of the total. Invertebrates are represented exclusively by insects and constitute 6% of the total. Domestic animals horses, donkeys, dromedaries, sheep, oxen often appear in the biblical vignettes. The remaining animals, far more numerous in species, mainly have a decorative function. The artists made an effort, in their miniatures, to gratify the taste of Luke Borso, who commissioned the Bible and who was a great lover of rural life and of hunting. They thus represented not only the duke's coats of arms and emblems, but also those animals that would particularly delight him. They deliberately chose local fauna, selecting animal species from the marshland and grasslands in the surrounding countryside of Ferrara and species that were domesticated for hunting both as prey (deer, hares, rabbits) and as predators (birds of prey, dogs, felines), sometimes represented in enclosures or with collars that indicate their captivity. The exotic species, on the other hand, though they were all familiar in Italy at the time, could have been observed in the many menageries at European courts or in the skechbooks of drawings offauna that circulated among artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]