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The name of the sea bird, cormorant, is transmogrified from corvus marinus--marine raven--a term that first appears in the Latin-German Reichenau glosses of the eighth century AD. Of the about forty-odd members of the family phalacrocoracidae, the species phalacrocorax carbo Linn, is the most numerous (Fig. 4). It is round scattered all over the globe except for the islands of the central Pacific. The meat of the adult bird is uneatable. Sociable animals, cormorants live in large groups, wherever there is water and plenty of fish; they are not at all shy and can easily be tamed. Excellent divers and very swift underwater swimmers, they are voracious eaters, and each requires about four pounds of fish per day. When their stomachs are full, they store their catch in extendable gullets. Often, whole fish can be seen protruding from their beaks. They readily disgorge their prey to feed their young. (13) These various properties must have inspired the idea of exploiting them to benefit human consumption. To tame them, a ring is applied around the bird's neck and a string attached to it. The ring prevents the passage of valuable larger fishes beyond the gullet. Docile and good learners by nature, cormorants can be trained to take pride in delivering the more precious catch to their masters, who reward the birds by feeding them with medium-sized fishes in addition to the smaller fry that make their way past the neckring into the stomach as a matter of course.

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

In China and Japan fishing with cormorants is still practised today, and it is to China that we must turn for an elucidation of the hitherto mystifying conduct of Carpaccio's hunters. (14) The Chinese alone have truly domesticated the cormorant and even persuaded it to breed in captivity. Normally, the wings are clipped to prevent escape. Fishing with these birds apparently began in the tenth century in China, and is still a commercial business. The birds are so well trained that most fishermen allow them complete freedom of movement, dispensing even with the neck-rings. Should a bird fail to return speedily with its catch to the flat bamboo raft, the fisherman's pole or paddle will gently remind the straggler of its duties. The catch goes into a large basket and the birds line up at the edge of the raft (Fig. 6). Once they spot more fish in the shallow clear waters, they make another dive. The spectacle also appeals to tourists and souvenirs are readily available: the toy raft illustrated here, which was acquired in Guilin, Guangxi, is a typical example (Fig. 5). The visual joke expressed in this object consists in the fact that the fisherman has resorted to fishing tackle to effect a catch, while the birds idle on the raft. In Japan, cormorants tamed for fishing are attested to as early as the seventh century AD. The activity seems to have developed there independently and was turned into a highly stylised court event early on. Today, it is mainly a tourist attraction, a dramatic night-time entertainment that can be watched from boats on the river Nagara al Gifu in west-central Honshu (Fig. 7). Fire baskets or cressets mounted at the prows of the fishing barges seem to attract prey for the cormorants. These are tethered in groups to strings manipulated by the toaster of the game, who stands in the boat, clad in a black jacket and hat and a white skirt. The radius of activity of these birds is limited, and they are pulled on board as soon as they have caught a fish. In Japan, unlike China, cormorants are not domesticated but caught wild and trained for their task. (15)

[FIGURES 5-7 OMITTED]

Carpaccio's archers are clearly not out to kill the birds. Instead, they hit them with clay pellets to make them return to the boat and disgorge their prey. The birds appear perfectly trained and at case, since no rings are shown around their necks. Archery seems a somewhat convoluted method compared with the much simpler Chinese system for inducing cormorants to deliver their catch. Conceivably its attraction lay in the fact that it gave modish Venetian youths every opportunity to display their prowess in a manoeuvre that was perhaps construed as courtly and certainly demanded considerable skill. (16) These bowmen are not hard working fishermen, but rather the elegantly attired scions of wealthy families who can afford black scouts. The reed huts in the background are clearly not their abodes, but--as we shall see--used by them for recreation; these young men will return to their palaces in the Serenissima of which we get a glimpse in the Correr panel.

A closer look at the little reed village, however, reveals a number of noteworthy details. Surrounded by channels, the small island on which it stands appears self contained, and is occupied by three fairly spacious thatched huts. Several big rolls of reed matting, which must be building materials, are propped up against the walls of the central structure. A fence at the right pens up a number of birds, presumably cormorants at rest. (17) Next to it, there is an outhouse at the edge of the water and a small landing stage at the left of the island, where, moreover, the channel is bridged by a flimsy contraption, clearly a weir.

This must be what Leonardo, as ever fascinated with the movement and workings of water, must have had in mind when be rapidly sketched two of these devices on the recto of a sheet recently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum (Fig. 8): one showing the wooden construction that crosses a course of water in the 'dry' state--slim poles fixed at both ends prop it up against the pressure of the flow--the other with swirling waters rushing through the structure thus somewhat obscuring its makeup. (18)

[FIGURE 8 OMITTED]

In the Getty Carpaccio, a pulled up barge, a dog and two men bespeak activity in the settlement. One of the men carries a large white object on top of a long stick. We would be at a loss concerning its character, were it not for some slightly later Venetian sources that describe hunting and fishing parties and festive contests among young men. (19) As mentioned above, the valli, that is the lagoons in the north, west and south of the city with their low salinity teemed with game, fowl, fishes and seafood, especially during the annual migration of birds, and provided an ideal theatre for such upper class activities. Calmo records the widespread custom of the nobility after having made a good bag or suspending birds as trophies above the gates of their palazzi. (20) The swan atop a pole may signal the preparation for such a display. The rooftops of the two larger huts seem to have openings to allow smoke to escape. Again, it is from the letters of Calmo that we learn of the delights of mixed boating parties, with the participants consuming the catch of the day, including grilled eels and lobsters 'intei casoni' ('in those huts'). (21) Sybaritic outdoor barbequeues are hot a recent invention. A slightly later testimony is provided by Gerolamo Parabosco (c. 1524-57), a minor poet and gifted madrigalist from Piacenza who successfully strove to be accepted by affluent and educated Venetians during his brief career. The setting of his Diporti ('Diversions') of 1552, a series of novelle narrated by seventeen gentlemen from Venice and elsewhere in Italy--with such notables as the humanist Sperone Speroni and Pietro Aretino among them--over the course of three days, are the wintry valli. Caught by a storm while on a hunting and fishing excursion, they retire to 'certi capannucci in mezzo l'acque'--huts in the midst of the water made of planks, reeds and clay--and decide to wait for better weather. Well provisioned and served by local fishermen, one of the members congratulates himself on not being in the company of ladies, 'who are usually the vermouth and venom that corrupt and poison any pleasant and lively company.' This gives rise to the ensuing novelle and to wide-ranging discussions delivered with great disinvoltura. (22) Read in the context of Carpaccio's Hunting on the lagoon and the Two Venetian ladies, Parabosco's text seems to provide the perfect gloss to the material and psychological issues the painting presents. While existence in the valli is painstakingly chronicled, the way of life of renaissance women of high social status--with all its inherent constraints--is analysed with infinite subtlety and supreme art. (23)

How can we account for this particular method of fishing in regions as far apart as Europe and the Far East? It might be assumed that the birds' near-universal distribution led to comparable practices arising independently in different localities. On the other hand, it is striking that its first clear depiction in the west should be connected with Venice, a city whose well documented connections to the Orient and China date back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Marco Polo does not mention cormorant fishing, but there is an extremely vivid description of it in the writings of the Franciscan Odorico Matiussi, better known as Odoric of Pordenone (1263-1331). Odoric, who was beatified in 1755, was a missionary to China and a native or the Friuli (which is conveniently adjacent to the Veneto). (24) It would be imprudent, however, to accord him sole credit for introducing cormorant fishing into Italy and other European countries. The Franciscans were firmly established in several locations in China by his day, as were Venetian and Genoese merchants with their families. In addition to Odoric's report (a text which had already been much copied and translated as early as the fourteenth century), there may have been further late medieval descriptions of cormorant fishing which are now lost. The practice was probably also communicated by word of mouth through the increasing numbers of returning European visitors. Odoric himself reports that his estimate of the enormous size of the city of Cansay (today's Hangchou) was shared by the many people who had also been there, and with whom he spoke in Venice after his return. (25) Be that as it may, the Venetian lagoon was an ideal habitat for cormorants, and it comes as no surprise that such an elegant pursuit should have caught the eye or Carpaccio.

Our interpretation of the hunt finds support in later Venetian depictions of similar scenes. They have, however, remained as unrecognised for what they are as has the true subject of Carpaccio's panel. It is the other prolific portraitist of Venetian life and culture, Pietro Longhi (1702-85) to whom we owe several preparatory sketches and two splendid oil paintings documenting the same aristocratic activity (Fig. 9). (26) A gentleman in a gallooned waistcoat, his left knee supported by a cushion--next to which one observes the customary container of clay pellets--stands on the prow of a gondola-like barge, and draws his bow. The boat is propelled by three standing rowers and--unlike Carpaccio's fisolieri--an additional steersman. No birds are perched on the board; however, the head of a single cormorant, its signature white throat clearly visible, just emerges from the waters of the lagoon ahead of the barge. Longhi's depictions of hunting parties in the valli, of their preparation, and the concluding display of the prey--comprising all kinds of water fowl--far outnumber his scenes of fishing with cormorants. Since Longhi did not show the cormorants' catch, the activities of the archers are never properly identified--the Querini Stampalia painting is generally captioned as a duck or merganser hunt on the lagoon (La caccia all'anitra in laguna or La caccia allo smergo).

[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]

How far does the realism of this forgotten pastime's two outstanding advocates--Carpaccio and Longhi--really go? At first sight, it appears as if every aspect of this particular sport is indeed being meticulously documented. If we linger, however, over the succession of steps from the delivery of the catch by the cormorants to the neat display of the gutted fishes over the barges' right edges, what has obviously--and presumably intentionally--been left out is the rather messy killing and cleaning of the haul. These unromantic details would have militated against the nobility of the subject-matter. Here, Carpaccio treats us to a stylish portrayal of an upper-class diversion that, while containing its exemplary features, excludes the less desirable ones: the mark of much great art.

This article is dedicated to Reiner Haussherr. I would like to thank warmly Joan Mertens and Katharine Baetjer for their constructive reading of this study.

(1) J. Paul Getty Museum, no. .72; oil on panel, x cm; c. 1490-95 The painting left Italy in 1950 and was acquired by the Getty in 1979 from a Swiss collection. For the latest discussion and a selected bibliography, ser B, Aikema and Brown (eds.), Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the time of Bellini, Durer, and Titian (for the Ministero per i beni e le attivita culturali, G. Nepi Scire), exh. cat., Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 5 September 1999-9 January 2000, New York, 2000, pp. 236-39, nos. 27a-b. For the dramatic recovery of the painting in 1944 and its provenance, see A. Busiri Vici, 'Vicenda di un dipinto: la "Caccia in valle" di Vittor Carpaccio', Arte Antica e Moderna, vol. XXIV, October/December 1963, pp. 345-56.

(2) The contiguity of the panels was proposed by G. Robertson, 'J. Lauts: Carpaccio', Art Bulletin, vol, XLV, no. 2, 1963, p. 158, who, however, swiftly renounced his suggestion in idem, 'The Carpaccio exhibition at Venice', Burlington Magazine, vol. CV, no. 726 (September 1963), p. 389, and by . Ragghianti, 'Vittore Carpaccio', Sele Arte, vol. IX, no. 64, 1963, pp. 46-62, and idem, 'L'architettura musicale del Carpaccio', L'Espresso, 7 July 1963, p. 26, in the same year. For a photographic reconstruction, see A. Dorigati (ed.), Carpaccio, Bellini, Tura, Antonello e altri restauri quattrocenteschi della Pinacoteca del Museo Correr, exh cat., Venice 1993, p. 78; V. Sgarbi, Carpaccio, translated from the Italian by J. Hyams, nos. 9a-c; Y. Szafran, 'Carpaccio's "Hunting on the Lagoon": a new perspective', Burlington Magazine vol. CXXXVII, no. 1104 (March 1995), pp. 148-58, especially p. 149, and Aikema and Brown, op. cit., p. 238. During the exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, both panels were presented together for the first time The Getty painting has one of the earliest trompe-l'oeil representations of renaissance art on its back: a still life of letters tucked into a ribbon that is nailed to an architectural frame on a marbled background (Fig. 3). See ibid., p. 238. No image survives on the veto of the Correr panel Szafran's careful technical study of 1995 confirmed observations she had already made in 1989 Both panels are spruce, a wood normally used for furniture. The presence of notches and hinges together with pigment at the panels' edges, indicate that they were either part of a bifold cupboard door or a small doorway of which the other half is lost. An early copy of the Correr panel shows that it was originally wider (ibid., p. 157) For an (unsatisfactory) photograph of the copy, once at Llanrwst in the collection of Lady Aberconway, see G. Fiocco, 'Postille al mio Carpaccio', Arte Veneta, vol. XII, fig. 262. This photograph is now in the Fondo Fiocco at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice. I would like to thank Professor Giandomenico Romanelli, the Director of the Musei Civici Veneziani, who kindly reports an important finding the Getty Hunt in the lagoon appears in the catalogue of the gallery of the Count Francesco Algarotti (1712-64) (for whom, see J. Turner (ed.) The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London, 19996, vol. I, pp. 632-33, with bibliography) and his brother Bonomo, for which, see . Selva, Catalogo dei quadri dei disegni e dei libri che trattano dell'arte del disegno della galleria del fu Signor Conte Algarotti in Venezia, Venice, 1780, p. v, where it is listed as 'Caccia di smerghi etc', with measurements proving that it had already been cut down to its present size by that date. See also G. Romanelli, 'Il mistero del cane segato: Un caso per il commissario P.', in L. Olivato and G. Barbieri (eds.), Lezioni di metodo: Studi in onore di Lionello Puppi, Vicenza, 2002, pp. 103-17, especially p. 117, note. Professor Romanelli hopes to find important supplementary information about the work in the papers of the Algarotti brothers, which he is in the process of consulting. For the painting's subsequent presence in the collection of Cardinal Fesch, see Busiri Vici, op cit., p. 351

(3) For a similar elegant rooftop terrace--or altana--with potted plants on the parapet situated close to the embankment at the Piazzetta, see Jost Amman's engraving of 1550, reproduccd in A, Tenenti and U. Tucci (eds.), Storia di Venezia dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima: il rinascimento, societa ed economia, vol. V, Rome, 1996, p. 117, fig. 9. For a detailed interpretation of the Correr panel that successfully rebuts the long-held identification of the two ladies as courtesans, see A. Gentili and F. Polignano, 'Vittore Carpaccio. Due Dame veneziane', in Dorigati, op. cit., pp. 74-81, and F. Polignano, 'Ritratto e sistema simbolico delle dame di Vittore Carpaccio', in A. Gentili et al., Il ritratto e la memoria: Materiali 3, Rome, 1993, pp. 229-51.

(4) Szafran, op. cit., p. 149.

(5) J. Paul Getty Museum, Handbook of the Collections, Los Angeles, 2001, p. 95. Already Busiri Vici, op. cit., pp. 348-49, saw that the 'black birds that appear erect in the barges' were cormorants; he, however, assumed that the birds shown in the water were loons or grebes (fisoli, also called svassi or colimbi, and--in the Venetian dilaect--tuffetti) which the 'hunters' aim at with terracotta balls in order net to spoil their plumage. The practice of using non-invasive projectiles for precisely that reason has been known since prehistoric times; see the blunt 'Vogelpfeil' (birding arrow) round in western Switzerland in a lakeside dwelling of the 5th millennium BC (Lac de Neuchatel): Archaologie in Deutschland, 2001, vol XVII, no. 2, April-June, p. 57. . Smith, 'Carpaccio's Hunt in the lagoon', APOLLO, vol XCIX, no. 146 (April 1974), pp. 240-41, also rightly identifies the birds on line boats as cormorants; however, he states that the 'hunters' are not aiming at the birds in the water but at (invisible!) fishes and--correctly that the catch is shown on the boats. He does net explain, however, how the fishes, if really hit by the balls, are retrieved from the water. . Goldner, 'A late Fifteenth Century Venetian Painting of a Bird Hunt', The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, vol. VIII, 1980, p. 25, instead takes these fishes for dead birds in spite of their incongruous size, perhaps in analogy to the print of 1610 published by Busiri Vici , op. cit., fig. 148d, which indeed depicts dead water fowl as prey draped over the edge of boats. The accompanying text describes the bird hunt as a diversion of the Venitian nobility in winter. Hunters stand in the boats using guns and, in one instance, a bow; dogs are shown in the water picking up the prey. In Aikema and Brown, op. cit., p. 239, it is stated that 'the birds being hunted [are] (not coots, as often stated, but black-necked grebes)'; neither the fishes nor the cormorants are mentioned.

(6) Busiri Vici, op cit., p. 349, uses the term grisuole; in Aikema and Brown, op. cit., p. 239, they are referred to as palade. Individually owned, such partitions served as 'riserve da pesca', see n. 22 below. A similar practice exists today in the Tonle Sap, the vast lake in central Cambodia where fishes are fenced in and fattened for a richer and easy catch.

(7) See Strassen (ed), Brehms Tierleben: Allgemeine Kunde des Tierreiches, Vogel, vol. I, 4th, revised edition, Leipzig and Vienna, 1911, pp. 136-40. Cormorants belong to the order of Steganopodes. See n. 12 below.

(8) These boats are called fisolari, according to Busiri Vici, op. cit., p. 350 and fig. 148d (see n. 5 above); the engraving of 1610 illustrated there shows much larger vessels than those on the Getty panel. The Lessico Veneto ... compilato ... da F. Mutinelli, Venice, 1851, p. 165, describes the same type: 'long, narrow and very light boats destined for catching the fisolo or colimbo minore' with six to eight rowers. Carpaccio's boats are clearly smaller and wider, and--as we shall see--net destined for hunting water fowl. For a contemporary description of this type, see n. 19 below.

(9) Carpaccio has a black gondoliere in his 'Miracle of the Cross'. See R Smith, 'In search of Carpaccio's African gondolier', Italian Studies, vol. XXXIV, 1979, pp. 45-59. For black slaves in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries see the abundant reference to contemporary sources in J. Burckhardt, Die the Kultur der Renaissance in Italien: Ein Versuch, (Gesammelte Werke, vol III, reprint of the 2nd edition of 1869), Berlin, ., p. 198. line possession of a moro or sarasin was prestigious. See L. Cheles, 'Tipologia dei ritratti nella fascia inferiore del ciclo dei mesi di Palazzo Schifanoia', in A. Gentili et al., Il ritratto e la memoria: Materiali 2, Rome, 1993, p, 76; see also M. Kuntzel-Runtscheiner, Tochter der Venus, Munich, 1995, p. 85, and B. Imhaus, Le minoranze orientali a Venezia 1300-1510, Rome, 1997, pp. 120-21.

(10) For the ecology of the valli, that is the lagoons of the upper Adriatic that reach from Chioggia to Aquileia, see the excellent overview in the Guida d'Italia del Touring Club Italiano: Veneto, Milan, 1969, pp. 23-26. Fed by many rivers, the low salinity of the lagoons provides perfect living conditions for a remarkable spectrum of both salt water and freshwater creatures.

(11) . Smith, op. cit., p. 240, takes them for unspecified generic representations of birds current in quattrocento paintings. This is hardly to be expected from Carpaccio, whose prowess as a meticulous observer of avian life is exemplified by his Young knight in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Swans, especially cygnets, were considered a delicacy from antiquity to the later middle ages and the renaissance. See Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, IX, 393. In England, for example, the ownership of swanneries was controlled by the crown. See L. Wooley, Medieval Life and Leisure in the Devonshire Hunting Tapes tries, New York, 2002, fig. 31, for a detail of the Otter and swan hunt from this splendid series of tapestries, datable to the second quarter of the fifteenth century, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, showing a swan's nest being robbed. The size of the birds on the Getty panel militates against their being wild geese (anser cinereus), as which they were erroneously identified in Busiri Vici, op. cit., p. 349. Swans and other fowl were also avidly hunted in the lagoon. See Aikema and Brown, op. cit., p. 239, for the distribution of osele salvadeghe to members of the Maggior Consiglio and other functionaries by the doge; the birds were later replaced by coins. It is also stated there that wild ducks form the wedge; this is, however, not likely for reasons of size and because of the off-white colour of the plumage. See also n. 20 below.

(12) See, for example, E. Salvin, 'Fishing with Cormorants' in G. Freeman and E. Salvin, Falconry: Its Claims, History, and Practice, to which are added Remarks on Training the Otter and Cormorant by Captain Salvin, London, 1859 (reprinted Chicheley, 1972), pp. 327-52. Both Busiri Vici, op. cit., p. 349, and . Simth, op. cit., p. 241, note that fishing with the help of the birds was practiced in China. Smith properly refers to Odoric of Pordenone as a western observer (see n. 24 below), but both fail of recognise what is being enacted in Carpaccio's panel.

(13) See Zut Sttassen, op. cit., pp. 136-40 Cormorants became a protected species in the USA in 1972 and have since proliferated to such a degree that they endanger gamefishing. In the Great Lakes region, their number has increased to 100,000 mating pairs. See J. Wilgoren, 'A Bird that's on a Lot of Hit Lists', New York Times, Friday 18 January 2002, p. A12. The bird's daily consumption of fish is given as pounds.

(14) I rely here on the unrivalled work of B. Laufer, The Domestication of the Cormorant in China and Japan (Field Museum of Natural History, Publication 300), Anthropological Series, vol. XVIII, no. 3, Chicago, 1931. See also . Gudger, 'Fishing with the Cormorant I: In China', The American Naturalist, vol. LX, no. 666, January-February 1926, pp. 5-41, and idem, 'Fishing with the Cormorant in Japan', The Scientific Monthly, vol. XXIX, 1929, pp. 5-38, with many good illustrations. Among them (Fig, 4) the earliest European description plus depiction of the bird in Johan Nieuhof, Het Gezantschap Der Neerlandtsche Ost-Indische Compagnie, Amsterdam, 1665, and P. Korrigan, Causerie sur la peche fluviale en Chine, Shanghai, 1909 (booth and the following title are cited in Laufer, op. cit.). For a brief account, well illustrated and well informed for its time, see C. Knight, Pictorial Museum: Animated Nature, vol. II. Birds, Reptiles, Mollusca, Insects, London, 1856-58, p. 70, no. 2070, Salvin in Freeman, op. cit., p. 345, describes how he made the birds dire and revert to disgorge: by first throwing 'a little light soil at them' to make them go, and later 'by throwing a stone near it' [., the bird lingering in the water]--this is basically what the Venetian youths do with their pellets.

(15) See Laufer, op. cit, pp. 232-35, 246-48, and Gudger, op, cit. in n. 14 above (1929), pp. 5-38. It is interesting to note that the widely-travelled German scientist Engelbert Kaempfer (1652-1716), for all his intimate knowledge of Tokugawa Japan and his interest in its wildlife, does not mention cormorants or their being employed in fishing, see . Bodart-Bailey, (translator and ed.), Kaempfer's Japan Tokugawa Culture observed, Honolulu, 1999. It was clearly an elite habit, and not widely disseminated. Laufer, op. cit., p. 248, suggests that the sport received more attention only after two imperial visits at Gifu in 1878 and 1880. It is still practised on several Japanese rivers today, but Gifu remains the classic location.

(16) A deserted island, which became the Ghetto of Venice in the early sixteenth century, had served the Venetian nobility as a training ground for crossbow shooting, and probably also for archers using terracotta balls (archi da balle). For the history of the future site of the ghetto, see D. Calabi, 'La citta degli Ebrei', in Tenenti and Tucci (eds.), op. cit., pp, 936-46, and . Davis and B. Ravid, The Jews of early modern Venice, Baltimore and London, 2001, p. 10. Buisiri Vici, op. cit., p. 349, note 12, mentions the recovery of innumerable terracotta halls during excavations of the rivi, that is the embankments of the city; he also refers to the term archi da balle being used in the subscription of the 1610 engraving by G. Franco illustrated in his fig. 148d, (see n. 5 above).

(17) Since a cormorant is riding home on the boat in the far background, it must be assumed that the birds are kept on land while hot working. The Chinese carry them to the water and, after work, home to their pens since their wings are clipped. In summer, they are kept in the open, tethered to their perches. See Laufer, op. cit., p. 244, and plate XII.

(18) Purchase, Florence B. Seldon Bequest and Rogers Fund, and Promised Gift of Leon D. and Debra R. Black 2000, no. 2000,328a. The salient features of this sheet are a frontal Hercules and a slim male nude drawing a sword. See C. Bambach, 'A Leonardo drawing for the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Studies for a statue of Hercules', APOLLO, vol. CLIII, no. 469 (March 2001), pp. 16-23, and eadem (ed.), Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003, no. 101, where it is suggested that the obstacles are 'probably the thin wood piers of a bridge'. The five upright strokes above the head of Hercules must be an abandoned attempt to depict the weir. Eel-baskets could be attached to such weirs--yet another of the many contrivances to exploit the natural wealth of the lagoon.

(19) Andrea Calmo (1510-71), allegedly the son of a fisherman and a prolific author of plays and letters who wrote in the Venitian dialect--and whose prose is not altogether easy to understand--describes such outings in loving detail. A typical example is his letter 35, addressed 'Al neto e schieto e pien de valor, M. Zambatista Sura, citadin de Bressa'. Not only does he list in Pantagruelian fashion the immense variety of birds available to the hunters armed with guns, crossbows and l'arco de balote, that is Carpaccio's terracotta-ball bow, but he also mentions the small barge, fisolere, propelled by four rowers, 'homeni che la vuoga da la capelina di nostri famosi pescatori. See V. Rossi (ed.), Le Lettere di Messer Andrea Calmo, Turin and Florence, 1888. On pp. 235-36, the editor refers fo G. Boerio, Dizionario del dialetto veneziano, terza editione aumentata e corretta aggiuntovi l'indice italiano veneto, Venice, 1867, where the term 'capelina' is explained as 'fante di cappelina, cioe uomo astuto e ribaldo', and adds that this is meant in a positive sense to describe the rowers as alert and nimble, One wonders whether the term rather refers to the peculiar hats the young noblemen wore on such occasions. For Calmo's life and works, see Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. VI, Rome, 1973, pp. 775b-781a (entry by L. Zorzi).

(20) Rossi, op. cit., letter 35, p. 235:' ... metandoi su le fenestre per pompa, per honor e per vangloria'. A painting by the eightenth-century Venetian painter Gabriel Bella in the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice is informative. It depicts popular diversions at the occasion of the Festa del 2 febbraio a S Maria Formosa, among them the snatching of a goose ('pigliar l'occa', as indicated by a cartellino) suspended from a palazzo. See G. Renier-Michiel, Origine delle Feste Veneziane, Venice, 1994 (reprint of the 1823 edition), fig. 18.

(21) Rossi, op. cit., letter 42, pp, 345-48, 'A la signora Frondosa'; see also letter 35, p. 235.

(22) See G. and F. Nicolini (eds.), I diporti di Messer Girolamo Parabosco, in Novellieri minori del Cinquecento: G Parabosco--S. Erizzo, Bari, 1912, pp. 9-199. For the scanty details of Parabosco's life and an evaluation of his art, see F. Bussi, Umanita e arte di Gerolamo Parabosco, madrigalista, organistu e puligrafo (Piacenza, c. 1524-Venezia, 1557), Piacenza, 1961. Most precious for out argument is the--all too brief--Ragionamento della prima giornata of the Diporti (pp. 9-16). Besides the details cited above, there is a classic description of the 'riserve di pesca' depicted by Carpaccio:' ... quivi in questi luoghi, che chiamano "valli", sono i pesci maestrevolmente imprigionati, allevati e nodriti.' He continues (p. 10): 'Quivi ... usano i gentiluomini per pescare a mille sorte di pescagioni, per uccellare e prendere in infinite altre maniere dipotto e solazzo, venirne, e quando un giorno, due e tre, come piu loro aggrada, starvi. Dove, dopo l'aversi preso il giorno fra quelle acque tutti quei maggiori piaceri che desiderar si possono, nelle dette casette, o vogliam dire cappanne, si riducono a mangiare, a dormire, a ragionare e a prendere di molti altri piaceri che prender si sogliono etc.'

(23) It bas been pointed out that the little page waiting on the ladies might be the carrier of messages sent to them by the gentlemen on their outing such notes having ended up in the trompe-l'oeil letter rack on the reverse of the panel. See Gentili and Polignano, op. cit., p. 76. The considerable number of letters depicted bespeaks a prolongued absence of the 'hunters'. The proem of Boccaccio's Decamerone is often cited as a point of reference for the frame of mind of Carpaccio's ladies; see ibid., p. 76, Polignano, op cit., p. 241, and Aikema and Brown, op. cit., p. 236. However, the texts cited above seem more pertinent in view of content and date.

(24) Gudger, op. cit. in n. 14 above (1926), pp. 7-8; Laufer, op. cit., p. 205, for example, refers to Odoric as the first western observer of the Chinese practice. Smith, op, cit., p. 241, does so too, without, however, using the Franciscan's report to explain what Carpaccio depicts. Not unlike Marco Polo, who had Rustichello of Pisa write up his adventures in 1299, Odorico dictated his so-called Relatio to a fellow brother, William of Solagna, in Padua in 1330. Odoric had set out in 1318 and visited Turkey, Iran, India, and China to return via the Silk Road, Northern Iran and the Black Sea in 1330. There is as yet no critical edition of the majority of the versions and translations of the report available. For an assessment see L. Monaco and . Testa (eds.), Odorichus de rebus incognitis: Odorico da Pordenone nella prima edizione a stampa del 1513, Camera di Commercio di Pordenone, 1986, pp. 18-19. (I owe my access to a copy of this rare volume to Dr. Almut Mutzenbecher): there are ninety unedited codices extant, sixty-three in Latin, sixteen in Italian, eight in French and three in German versions--so a complete collation would be a daunting undertaking. Only eleven Latin, seven Italian, two French and four German versions have been critically edited so far. The large number of manuscripts attests to considerable contemporary interest in Odoric's work. For Solagna's Latin text, sec . van den Wyngaert OFM (ed), Sinica Franciscana vol. I, Itinera et relationes fratrum minorum saeculi XIII et XIV, Florence, 1929, pp. 413-95; the fishing passage is on pp. 462-63; for a still valuable commentary and a translation see H. Yule (translator and ed.), Cathay and the Way thither; being a collection of medieval notices of China, vol. I, London, 1866, pp. 1-41 (biographical notes), pp. 111 12 (report on fishing with cormorants). Yule's 'Preliminary Essay', pp. XXXIII-CCLIII, is in part obsolete, but remains a precious survey of '... the intercourse of China and the western nations previous to the discovery of the sea-route by the Cape.' At which city and stream in China Odoric witnessed the practice is unknown. Yule's translation reads as follows: 'I came to a certain great river, and I tarried at a certain city which has a bridge across that river. And at the head of the bridge was a hostel in which I was entertained. And mine host, wishing to gratify me, said: "If thou wouldst like to see good fishing, come with me." And so he led me upon the bridge, and I looked and saw in some boats of his that there were some waterfowl tied upon perches. And these he now tied with a cord round the throat that they might not be able to swallow the fish which they caught. Next he proceeded to put three great baskets into a boat, one at each end and the third in the middle, and then he let the waterfowl loose. Straightaway they began to dive into the water, catching great numbers of fish, and ever as they caught them putting of their own accord into the baskets, so that before long all the three baskets were full. And mine host then took the cord off their necks and let them dive again to catch fish for their own food. And when they had thus fed they returned to their perches and were tied up as before. And some of those fish 1 had for my dinner.'

(25) Ibid., pp. 113-14. For western merchants, see ibid. pp CXXIII-XXXIV. For the presence of the Franciscans, see ibid, Letters and Reports of Missionary Friars 197-250. Odoric often stayed in houses of the Friars Minor during his travels through China. See also G. Arnold, Princely Gifts and Papal Treasures: The Franciscan Mission to China and its Influence on the Art of the West, Son Francisco, 1999, particularly Chapter X, 'Assessing the Franciscan Presence in China: The archaeological Evidence', pp. 135-51. The book of Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, written between 1310 and 1340, provides an insight into commercial relations between the West and China. The author was a Florentine merchant in the service of the banking house of the Bardi, who may hot have travelled to 'Cathay' himself--only to northern Persia--but who surely summarises the common knowledge of the time concerning the comparative safety of the trade routes across Asia thanks to the pax mongolica; see A. Evans (ed.), Francesco Balducci Pegolotti's 'La pratica della mercatura', Cambridge, MA, 1936.

(26) Busiri Viei, op. cit., p. 350, note 18, refers to a painting by Longhi in the Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia (Fig. 9), the subject of which he assumes to be a hunt of fisoli. It is, however, clearly a depiction of fishing with cormorants. For the two sketches and two oils by Longhi, see T. Pignatti, Pietro Longhi, Venice, 1968, nos. 181 (Museo Correr, no. 475); 183 (Museo Correr, no. 476); no. 181 (Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia--the painting Busiri Vici must have had in mind); and no. 182 (with O'Nians Gallery, London).

Elfriede R. Knauer serves as a Consulting Scholar at the Mediterranean Section of the University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, PA. Her latest book, The Camel's Load in Life and Death: Iconography and Ideology of Chinese Pottery Figurines from Han to Tang and their Relevance to Trade along the Silk Routes received the Prix Stanislas Julien of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1999.