Claudio Ambrosini’s (b. 1948) unpublished work for unaccompanied flute, A guisa di un arcier presto soriano (1981), although virtually unknown to the musical public and to connoisseurs alike, represents one of the most dazzling and impressive displays of extended techniques in the repertoire of solo flute music. The title, A guisa di un arcier presto soriano, comes from the seventh line of a sonnet by the Italian medieval poet Guido Cavalcanti (ca. 1250-1300) and translates as “just like a fast Syrian archer.” The archer in question is Eros, the Greek god of love. By the composer’s own admission, the form and expression of this piece is closely linked with the form and expression of Cavalcanti’s sonnet. In particular, Ambrosini intimates three elements specifically drawn from the poem: 1) moments of tension and suspense, as Eros silently approaches his target with bow and arrow in hand; 2) moments of love, even to the point of suggesting a love song; and 3) moments that suggest the fast passage of arrows. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore these three elements in Ambrosini’s work and to trace the correlations of the same elements in Cavalcanti’s sonnet. The expression of such concrete poetic imagery in Ambrosini’s music is at times easily deciphered through clear programmatic gestures or wordless madrigalisms; and at other times the symbolism of the poetry is developed in a hidden and metaphorical manner in its musical iteration. Further, Ambrosini’s use of a particularly colorful and vast array of extended techniques serves as the impetus for the formal structure that the music embodies, and I will show that this formal structure is itself a symbolic and metaphorical representation of the poetic significance of Cavalcanti’s sonnet.