1921 OF THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II 349 disquisition on the particular pleasure appropriate to every human act, in the course of which the De Anima, Nicomachean Ethics, and Rhetoric of Aristotle are cited, 1 concludes that hunt- ing is the only distinctively royal amusement : In quantum enim sunt reges non habent propriam delectationem nisi venationem. Considerans autem dominus noster serenissimus imperator Fredericus secundus semper augustus, Ierusalem et Sicilie rex, istius delectationis nobilitatem imperatoribus et regibus appropriandam dum- taxat, et videns antecessores suos et contemperaneos reges in delectatione a naturali veritate appropriata sibi et exhibita non sollicitos esse sed potius sompnolentos, servorum sui limitis minimo imperavit presentem librum falconarii transferre de arabico in latinum, ut eorum sit recordatio que sapientium solertia adinvenit per experimentum et principium invenien- dorum inposterum. Ego igitur cum obedientia et devotione debita domini mei dignum preoccupavi preceptum presens opus tractatu quaternario dividendo, primo in theoricam huius artis, secundo in medicinas occultarum infirmitatum, tertio in curas 2 manifestarum infirmitatum, quarto in medicamen rapidorum quadrupedum. 3 Ordinarily the manuscripts have five books, the last two devoted to quadrupeds, so that only the first three concern us. Moreover of these the second and third are confined to diseases and remedies, and there is also much of this in the first book, after the pre- liminary classification of birds of prey, several of which have only their oriental names. It will thus be seen that the treatise, which is mainly a collection of prescriptions, has little in common with the subject-matter of the De Arte, and there is no indication that the emperor drew upon it. 4 Its popularity is attested by the numerous surviving manuscripts of the Latin text and by the French translation made by Daniel of Cremona for the use of Frederick's son Enzio, which must antedate Enzio's imprison- ment in 1249. 5 1 ' Operationes quarum principium est per naturam et perfectio per voluntatem et cetere operationes et un[a]queque istarum coniungitur delectationi et tendit ad finem proprium, ut in libro de anima et Nychomachia et rethorica declaratum est,' MS. Reg. Lat. 1446, fo. 31 v . The De Anima was then current, but the known versions of the Nicomachean Ethics and Rhetoric, made in the thirteenth century, have not hitherto been connected with Sicily ; see Grabmann, Aristotelesilbersetzungen, pp. 204- 37, 242 f ., 251-6. a MS. ' cuius '. 3 Vatican, MS. Reg. Lat. 1446, fo. 32 ; cf. Pertz, Archiv, xii. 320. This preface begins : * Sollicitudo nature gubernans. . . .' Other manuscripts have a different preface, beginning, ' Reges pluribus delectationibus gaudent ', and mentioning Theodore by name : e.g. Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS. 287, fo. 45. The treatise itself begins : ' Genera autem volucrum rapidarum quibus sepius utitur gens aucu- pando sunt quatuor et xiiii species.' There are important differences between the Corpus and the Vatican texts.
- There are some notes, possibly added at the time of Frederick's revision, e.g.
at the end of bk. i : ' Sed qualiter debeat teneri pugillus secundum diversitatem avium tacuit auctor ' (Corpus MS. 287, fo. 50 v ). 6 Ciampoli, J Codici Francesi della R. Biblioteca di S. Marco (Venice, 1897), pp. 112- 14 ; Paul Meyer, in Atti of International Congress of History, Rome, iv. 78 (1904).
