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

domestication or training of the falcon is an image used to symbolize many different
levels and types of love, from sublimated courtly love, to erotic carnal love, to divine
love and spiritual enlightenment, worthy of a synchronized flying demonstration in
heaven.
In early Italian poetry we find remnants of how falcons and hawks were portrayed
in Provenqal poetry: the trained falcon, integral to courtly life in itself, symbolizes a
participant in the love relationship, while, in Italy, the birds' fierceness is adapted to
describe the psychology of the suffering of the poet in love. Nostalgic poets, such as
Folgore da San Gimignano, exalt the practice of falconry and the courtly world that it
evokes in an uncomplicated manner. Changes in poetic style with the advent of the
Dolce Stil Novo cause falconry images to seemingly fall out of favor, along with other
animal imagery that was used extensively in previous poetry. At the same time, and
through the rest of the Trecento, falcons hold their ground in the sensual and narrative
poetry of madrigals.
Meanwhile, Dante uses the falcon's symbolic potential quite differently in his
Cornmedia. The concept of training and domesticating falcons to do the bidding of
humans, seen previously in representations of secular love, can be extended to encompass
the idea of training the human mind and the soul to search for the highest love, not simply
secular but divine. The falconer in charge of both the falcons in training and those who
are fully trained and joyful in Paradise is, of course, God, the divine falconer who spins
the ultimate lure, the heavenly spheres. This use of falcons to illustrate the journey and
education of the soul is akin to Dante's use of cranes to illustrate his quest to write the