{"id":3813,"date":"2016-11-22T10:57:22","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T09:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.facsimilefinder.com\/articles\/?p=3813"},"modified":"2019-08-09T07:45:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T06:45:18","slug":"wiener-moamyn-facsimile-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.facsimilefinder.com\/articles\/wiener-moamyn-facsimile-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Adeva Proudly Presents the Wiener Moamyn Facsimile Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adeva<\/strong> has recently announced the publishing of the facsimile edition of the Vienna Moamyn <\/strong><\/a>(also known as De Scientia Venandi per Aves <\/strong>or\u00a0Latin Moamin<\/strong>)\u00a0as Vol. CXXIII of the \u201cCodices Selecti<\/strong>\u201d series, reproducing the manuscript \u2013 safely stored in Vienna,\u00a0Kunsthistorisches Museum, Collections of Arms and Armour, K 4984 \u2013 in the original format and colors, in its most minute details.<\/p>\n

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Example of historiated initials of the De Scientia Venandi per Aves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Vienna Moamyn\u00a0was written and illuminated in the late 13th century, under request of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen\u00a0<\/strong>(1194-1250), King of Sicily, playing a\u00a0significant role for the creation of De Arte Venandi cum Avibus\u00a0<\/strong>(\u201cOn the Art of Hunting with Birds\u201d), which the king himself wrote a few years after.<\/p>\n

Fifty-four folios with 101 masterly composed colorful genre scenes on the art of falconry \u2013 the Vienna Moamyn is a unique bibliophile treasure from the late medieval period that really deserves to be discovered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span>No other medieval ruler practised falconry with the same enthusiasm as Frederick II<\/strong>, King of Sicily<\/span><\/div>\n

With his famous treatise on falconry De Arte Venandi cum Avibus<\/strong><\/a> (\u201cOn the Art of Hunting with Birds\u201d), Frederick II of Hohenstaufen wrote a groundbreaking work<\/strong> about falconry in order to preserve a more than two-thousand-year old cultural technique from the Central Asian and Arabian realms for the Western world. Based on Arabic sources, his own intensive studies about the anatomy, life, and learning patterns of birds of prey, and De Scientia Venandi per Aves<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 currently known as the Vienna\u00a0Moamyn<\/strong> \u2013\u00a0he compiled a monumental treatise, which in its factual and systematic presentation is unmatched in the 13th century and still highly significant for falconry today.<\/p>\n

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Fol. 1v: detail of patron and writer of De Arte Venandi cum Avibus, Emperor Frederick II<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Written in Latin, the Vienna Moamyn<\/strong> is a five-volume treatise on falconry and the keeping of hounds<\/strong>, which deals with all aspects of hunting with birds and dogs. Book 1 provides in-depth knowledge about birds of prey and the difficult process of training them, while Books 2 and 3 are dedicated to various avian diseases and proven healing methods. Books 4 and 5 deal with the correct husbandry and care of hounds.<\/p>\n

The artist used an amazing range of expression to meet the challenge of illustrating the scientific text<\/strong>. In the more than 80 scenes<\/strong> in Books 2 and 3, no two depictions are the same \u2013 although the falconer and his birds are the only protagonists to be seen.\u00a0In the last two volumes, hounds were added to enrich the iconographic program. The naturalistic reproduction of their habitus and behavior, the\u00a0illustration of the emotional relationship between the falconer and his birds<\/strong>, and the perfect insertion of the scenes in the letter bodies bear testimony to the great talent of the illuminator who turned each of these little pictures into a work of art in its own right.<\/p>\n

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Adeva has produced\u00a0two formats: regular edition and luxury edition, both provided with a commentary volume authored by\u00a0Baudouin Van de Abeele<\/strong>, the world-renowned expert for medieval hunting treatises.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A<\/strong> special feature<\/strong> worth mentioning are the notes in the margins of the miniatures<\/strong>, in Italian. Rather than being later additions, these annotations served as exact instructions for the artist about the contents of the scenes intended for those parts of the initials that the scribe had left blank for him. A similar number of painting instructions is hardly found in any other medieval manuscript. This makes the Vienna Moamyn<\/strong><\/a> an outstanding object of research into the relationship between picture and text.<\/p>\n

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Fol. 31v: an example of the minute instructions to the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adeva<\/strong> published the Vienna Moamyn facsimile<\/strong> in two editions:<\/p>\n