| "...Abbiamo investigato intorno tutto cio che concerne quest'arte...allo scopo di poter essere, alla fine, in grado di raccogliere in un trattato tutto quanto Ci avevano insegnato la Nostra esperienza..." In Frederick's words the term "experience", in reference to the practical exercise of falconry, is a key foundation of his intellectual project. It is underlined as being the keystone criterion for all his statements. This dissertation is an attempt to measure the role "experience" and "observation" played not only for the creation of De arte venandi, but for the management of Frederick's government.;In the course of this study, which will focus on the nature of medieval falconry and hunting, I shall try to establish how symbolic models tied to this tradition were interpreted during Frederick's time. If we consider these activities as a form of social and cultural container, it is necessary to ask not only what contents were gradually introduced but in what way the shape of the container conditioned such contents. The object of this study is not hunting per se, but its specific role within the culture of Frederick's world. Hunting and falconry were considered by Frederick to be aristocratic activities. Consequently, social and cultural issues will be analyzed in connection with the hunting experience of his aristocratic social world. For Frederick's social culture is, above all, the system that is under observation, while hunting and falconry are the lenses through which this system will be observed.;I devote each of the five chapters of this study to an historic investigation on the influence falconry and hunting had on Frederick's life in an attempt to construct a different view of what might have been at work in his complex world, in his emotional and intellectual reality, and in the worlds of desire and decision that lie beyond the minimal traces of the life this person once led. |
