The Feather Book of Dionisio Minaggio

In 1618, Dionisio Minaggio, Chief Gardener of the State of Milan, created the Feather Book, a bound collection of 157 collages of birds, craftsmen, and scenes from the Commedia dell’Arte created entirely out of natural, undyed bird feathers:
The illustrations of the birds were prepared as follows: The beaks, the claws, and the skin and feathers of the head in one piece, and the body feathers individually, were glued to sheets of paper which were then cut out and attached to support sheets of 12” x 18 ¾” hand-made paper. The eyes of the figures are made of paper. Actually, there are a few non-bird elements in 3 of the pictures — dried oak leaves in one picture, a snake skin draped in a tree in another and, in a third, the bird is eating a small chameleon, part of whose skin can still be seen. All the captions on the illustrations are in the same hand, presumably Minaggio’s, and occasionally, where he has used both Latin and Milanese terms, he has mis-spelled the local dialect. The 156 drawings were originally housed in a large book bound in leather over oak boards with metal bosses and clasps which was contemporary to their creation.
* A short essay on the Feather Book.
* Art made from butterfly wings.


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