On 1 December 2016, Italy joined the 17 Nations that recognise the Art of Falconry to be part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity according to the UNESCO Convention.
In Malta, the heart of the Mediterranean and the home of the Rose of the Winds, falconry was widely practiced by the Hospitalier Order of Knights, subsequently renamed the Knights of Malta, who had given up all other forms of hunting as voluntary penitence. In 1530 Charles V of Habsburg, King of Spain and Sicily, turned the island over to the Knights of Malta, asking for the gift of a duly trained Peregrine Falcon as a token perpetual rental fee and pledge of loyalty. Charles V was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the Basilica of Saint Petronius in Bologna on 24 February 1530, thus further intertwining the ties between Malta, Italy, Spain and the Art of Falconry.
Leonardo da Vinci was capable of disclosing the secret appeal that irresistibly obliges us to raise our eyes to the sky in a single sentence describing this collective archetype: “… Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return”. Of course, Man will never be able to fly by his own means but it is equally true that there always comes a time in life that teaches you to spread your wings. However, Mankind has never been satisfied with metaphors and, in order to convert them into reality created the sail thousands of years ago, a wing that enables us to fly over the waves.
This is the synthesis of the magic that inspired Serena Galvani, a photographer and photojournalist for A.I.R.F., as well as sailing enthusiast and yachtswoman, to put together, with extraordinary sensitivity, the Art of Falconry and Sailing in her images. “ARIA, UOMINI, FALCHI” is a photographic story-telling in which the themes are embodied in the powerful glances of men and birds of prey, which merge to form sails and wings seeking the wind, rough landscapes with remote Medieval towers, in which all the characters come across from the past to give back to the world a memory that bears the sign of remote ancestors and traditions never forgotten.
The “ARIA, UOMINI, FALCHI” exhibition will run until Friday, 17 March, and will be open to the public during the opening hours of the Italian Cultural Institute.
