Page 34 - SOMOS FOA #7
P. 34
Opening
BORDERS
The Road to Recognition ty years, the practical implementation inclu-
ding the competent and rigorous selection,
Several years pass, with encouraging results, and surely also the initiatives to attain ac-
until the variety seems ready for official re- ceptance of the new variety in the avicultural
cognition by the Italian Federation for Orni- community.
thology (F.O.I.), in 1985. In a few years after
that, specimens are transferred to other bree- Moreover, a barrage of publications has origi-
ders who are interested in this novelty, which nated from the entire process, about different
thus spreads with lightning speed across the stages and sub-aspects, that are instructive in
world. At the end of 1989, on the occasion of a broader sense for the world of aviculture.
the World Championship in Pordenone, the
official recognition by the C.O.M. (Confédera- Who was Umberto Zingoni?
tion Ornithologique Mondial) follows.
During my own professional career, I expe-
According to the authoritative book written rienced that research efforts – and their des-
by Henk van der Wal [2], the first Fiorinos cription – are often better appreciated when
appeared in 1980 in different national shows the reader is familiar with the person of the
in Italy, and Fiorinos were entered into the researcher.
Mondial for the first time in 1983, when the
event took place in Piacenza. Umberto Zingoni approached, persisted in,
and described in various ways the develop-
On both occasions they were inscribed as a ment of the Fiorino from his background as a
non-recognized variety. From 1971, it thus scientist. In view of this, it seems appropriate
took ten years to develop and refine the Fio- to include a few biographical data here, ba-
rino. As elaborated in Zingoni’s publications, sed on the blurb on the cover of the second
during at least the last half of that decade edition of his authoritative work “Canaricol-
they were bred in rigorous consanguinity. tura”, and augmented by information from
Subsequently, apparently two five-year pe- the website https://www.ilcanarinofiorino.
riods were devoted to missionary work, first com/, which is also the source of the photo-
at national Italian and subsequently at inter- graphs collected in Figures 4 and 5.
national level.
Umberto Zingoni was born in 1920 in Floren-
All of this to develop, besides the Padovan, ce and performed a university study there, in-
the Gibber Italicus and the Arriciato Gigante terrupted by two years of military service. In
Italiano (A.G.I.), a new and attractive Italian 1946, he completed his graduation thesis and
variety of posture canaries. received a degree in natural sciences.
In my opinion, this effort deserves our con- In that year, he was appointed as an assis-
siderable admiration, because of the original tant with the chair of human physiology of
vision, the tenacity during a process of twen- the University of Florence, and in 1957 he re-
34 Federación Ornitológica Argentina
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