Decorative arts in the Swabian era

Frederick II of Swabia loved to associate with artists and architects, writers and musicians, theologians and scientists. His court was a meeting place for Latin, Greek, Arab, and Hebrew cultures. Art pervaded every aspect of daily life, from furnishings to hunting, from books to textiles. Books, in particular, with their illuminated initials and figurative decorations, are genuine masterpieces. An example is Frederick's treatise on the complex and refined art of bird hunting, which contains precious drawings: hundreds of birds are illustrated with great naturalistic fidelity and classified according to their environment (aquatic, terrestrial, or intermediate) and nature (predatory or not). In the treatise, breeding, training, and bird hunting techniques are presented as an actual science.