THE ANCESTORS OF THE ITALIAN GIANT FRILL

3. THE ANCESTORS OF THE ITALIAN GIANT FRILL

And so now we come to the Italian Giant Frill. The multiform selection of certain new features, which gradually manifested themselves over centuries of domestication of the wild canary, led in France ñ or to be more precise, in Flanders, to the creation of the so-called "Frills" (frisés).

There developed in France, principally during the 19th century, a breed of considerable size with an extensive plumage of distinct curly tufts all over the body. In 1910, this breed was given the name Frisé Parisien, the Parisian Frill, widely known simply as the Parisian.

In the same period, Italian breeders started importing from France the most ìbeautifulî exemplars they saw in the Paris shows of the time. With great skill and mastery, they developed the most attractive traits to the extent that gradually a kind of Italian sub-breed of the Parisian Frill emerged with much more marked and accentuated features than those in France, which remained more or less the same.

To tell the truth, some careful crossing with large English canaries was also carried out, with positive results as regards certain traits. This is all "part of the game" when you want to improve a breed.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that from that period onwards breeders all over the world who wanted to get hold of excellent Parisians started coming to Italy to find them.