Whoever you are, welcome to the Pollaio del Re, or the King's Hen-House. Hoping you'll appreciate and enjoy our work, we'd like to share with you the main goals and purposes behind this web site. The King's Hen House is about putting together a large historic, scientific, technical and photographic archive which can be, at last, easily accessible by anyone; while, at the same time, taking into account the breeders' point of view that stresses the importance of offering correct and exhaustive information; turning this web space into a meeting point to share personal experiences and ideas, and acquire data concerning poultry at large. Having said this, we wish you a pleasant reading, and invite you to express your opinion per e-mail without hesitation. Constructive suggestions, ideas and criticism are welcome.

Staff del Pollaio

Founder, Designer and Webmaster : Hello, my name is Viviano Masconni. I am a professional painter, and I've lived for years in the countryside of Tuscany, and more precisely in the Maremma.
Since I was a child I always read Konrad Lorenz's works and was fascinated by the population of hen houses at large; in fact, to the date I still keep and breed poultry with great interest and passion. Several years ago I was a FAI member, the former Italian fancy poultry breeders' association, but due to my workload I was forced to discontinue my activities within the management. Later on I became an A.T.A member, the association of poultry breeders of Tuscany.

In the mean time, the wish to create a web site entirely dedicated to poultry keeping was getting stronger and stronger. Initially, the idea was based on the fact that the internet did not offer much to read in Italian, especially about Italian breeds. This is not the case in countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands or the States, where plenty of this kind of information is available online. I personally believe that defining fancy poultry keeping as a simple "hobby", thus disregarding the exhaustive researching and the strict selection which is often behind it, is an extremely reductive definition; I am convinced it is an old, nearly extinct knowledge and craftsmanship, and especially an endangered one by the modern industrialisation. On all accounts, this is my own point of view, and we certainly are still on time to recover the splendid past of so many of those Italian and foreign breeds that during centuries embellished the gardens of noble manor houses as well as farmyards of old.

Important has been the role plaid by Dr. Elio Corti, who is not only an exquisitely agreeable person, but also one of the greatest importance for the development and improvement of our web site. Elio, in fact, is an expert on chicken genetics, probably a unique one at this level in Italy, as well as a scrupulous researcher under a historic point of view.
Meeting Stefano has been a lucky and unexpected circumstance: his knowledge of the matter together with his translation skills is a crucial combination which will enable us to open up to fancy poultry breeders from other countries and the internet's international audience. Stefano's is no easy task, because some specific Italian terminology has no correspondence in English.

At this stage, I cannot but wish that our efforts will contribute at least partially to bring more unity within the Italian poultry fanciers, thanks also to a convenient communication and exchange means as the information technology.
We also hope to help increase the number of Italian fanciers in this ancient and fascinating area, unjustly forgotten and diminished in recent times. Today, at last, we begin to appreciate once again the value of our country's ancient traditions, and re-discover the importance of our cultural inheritance.
Thanks to the low-profile task carried out so far by a few, courageous breeders, we have been able to (at least partially) preserve or retrieve the genetic richness of some Italian breeds, the art of which breeding had nearly gone lost.

Viviano Masconni
.

Dr Elio Corti

History and genetics of the poultry species:  Born in 1942 in the Alessandria area, but with ancestors originating from the Lomellina County, in 1967 after the classic studies he graduated a Medical Doctor and a Surgeon at the University of Pavia, and specialized in Cardiology at the University of Turin in 1970.
After completing his military service as a medical officer, he started working at the Alessandria hospital and married Ms Claudia Deambroggio, who prematurely passed away in 1986.
Among his many hobbies, which he engages in with so much determination as to resemble professionalism, are photography and computer programming, which allowed him to create and implement programs apt to manage nearly all activities in the hospital he was working at. Beside "his" hospital, such management was implemented at the blood donor association in Varese and the dialysis centre at the Bollate Hospital near Milan, a state of the art facility in the treatment of kidney failure.
In 1991, a dream he had since his childhood came true: collecting together and breeding all the genetic variations of chicken - and poultry at large - that intervened in the thousands years old history of the Gallus Domesticus (cfr. his work Summa Gallicana at www.summagallicana.it ).
In his farm, blessed by the peace of the softly sloping Monferrato hills, and the beautiful green, he decided to investigate once and for all the complex problem of genetics, the science that can help a breeder make the right choice, keeping in mind the many stages and passages which intervened in the past.

Dr. Elio Corti will be glad to answer any questions on such a fascinating subject.