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

CHAPTER 2: Falconry in Duecento and Trecento poetry.
The presence of images of birds of prey and the sport of falconry in Provengal
poetry does, as one might expect, translate into similar, though less frequent, usage in
Italian vernacular poetry of the Due- and Trecento. Other more traditional bestiary
animals, such as the stag, the beaver, and the basilisk, achieve a stronger presence, and it
is as interesting to note where falconry fails to appear as to note where it does appear and
why.' It is nearly absent from Sicilian poetry and from the love lyric of the stilnovisti,
while its presence, while never particularly strong, is felt much more in Siculo-Tuscan
poetry. This may well reflect the influence of the troubadours in northern Italy, such as
Rigaut de Berbezilh, discussed in Chapter 1.
Falconry imagery also sees limited use in the poetry of the Trecento. It is
restricted largely to madrigals, where the relationship between recreational hunting and
erotic encounters is overt. Also, the beloved lady is often represented as a falcon or hawk
that the poet desires to have. In either case, the use of the falcon reflects the changes in
the hunt of love in the Trecento to represent a more carnal and less spiritual kind of love.
As for the Cantari of the Trecento, falconry references are scanty and rarely
related to love, though the few that are found in that context will be mentioned here. It is
more common to see falcons associated with war and fierceness, as happens in the Entre'e
d'Espagne, and the Spagna minore and rn~ggiore.~ ~alcons and hawks get occasional
' For a general survey of the Provenqal origins of much Italian animal imagery, see Milton Stahl Garver,
"Sources of the beast similes in the Italian lyric of the thirteenth century," Romanische Forschztngen 21
(1908): 276-320. See also Francesco Sbordone, "I bestiari e le rime amorose del sec. XIII," in Studi latini e
neolatini (Napoli: Lebreria editrice Ferraro, 1971), 167-208.
In Poemi cavallereschi del Trecento, ed. Giuseppe Ferrero (Torino: UTET, 1965).