Group of Six Birds of Prey.

Saverio Manetti (1723-1785) was a prominent Florentine physician and botanist and a member of some of the leading scientific societies in 18th century Europe. In addition to his other accomplishments Manetti produced one of the finest bird books of the eighteenth century, the Ornithologia Methodice Digesta, which prefigured the later more ornithologically oriented books by trying for the first time to show birds that did not look obviously stuffed, against backgrounds that are relatively realistic ones rather than artificial branches.

It was commissioned by Maria Luisa, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and the copper-engravings were made by Violante Vanni and Lorenzo Lorenzi over an almost a ten-year period from 1767 to 1776.

Manetti worked almost exclusively from real specimens, beginning with the extensive collection of Marquis Giovanni Gerini. The result was one of the largest surveys of ornithology attempted up to that date, a work 'larger, better engraved and more vividly coloured any previous book on birds, notable for its lively posturing of the specimens. It is one of the half-dozen or so Great Bird Books in the collector's sense.

The attitudes of the birds themselves give this book its unique character. Strutting, parading, posturing, and occasionally flying. To the collector it is certainly a great book with very beautiful plates' (Dance).