Dissertation on Birds of Prey and the Sport - the Falconry Heritage ...

Bonagiunta portrays Dante's being inspired by divine love as a birdlwriter who
follows a dictator, an image very similar, as shall be seen, to the dancing souls of the
blessed in Canto XVIII of Paradiso who spell out a divine dictate with their spiritual
bodies. Bonagiunta now realizes the value of following the proper poetic leader, and
recognizes that, like the cranelike souls of Paradiso XVIII, Dante is an instrument
of ordered divine writing.
It has been said, by Lino pertile,12 that there is a falconry reference in this scene
that is not at first apparent. In his attempt to clear up the meaning of the above passage,
he has said that the "nodo" that holds back Bonagiunta da Lucca, Guittone, and Giacomo
da Lentini is that of the leash that threads through the rings on the end of a falcon's
jesses. The knot on the leash keeps it from slipping out of the jesses, and keeps the
falcon tied to its perch. Pertile reads the "vostre penne" of which Bonagiunta speaks as
the feathers of Dante and his Stilnovistic colleagues; they are birds following the dittator,
as the other group of poets was unable to do, because of their leashes. l3 He points out
further that it would have been appropriate for Bonagiunta to use falcon imagery, as a
Siculo-Tuscan poet. In essence, as falcons, the old poets were tied down, while the new
ones were able to fly. Pertile adds further that Dante adds insult to injury by following
this passage immediately by comparing the poets who live in that part of Purgatory to
l2 Lino Pertile, "I1 nodo di Bonagiunta, le penne di Dante e il Dolce Stil Novo," Lettere italiane 46 (1994):
44-75.
l3 For a different view, that yet still sees "vostre penne" as feathers on birdlpoets, see Mark Musa, Advent
at the Gates: Dante' s 'Comedy, ' Chapter VI: "The 'Sweet New Style' that I Hear" (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1974). Musa speaks of "the great gulf that separates a poet who has Dante's conception of
love from one who does not" (163). He elaborates that Bonagiunta's poetry was hindered by a sort of
spiritual gluttony: "his former inability to transcend completely his desires for the pleasures of this world
[...I his self-centered conception of happiness and of love was detrimental also to his art" (p. 121). Musa
concludes, "the initiation of upward flight announced in 'Donne ch'avete [...I' was to lead to the complete
spiritualization of love, becoming indistinguishable from the love of God" (p. 127).