Ben:
 
If you're having trouble with Cavalcanti, then you're not alone!  Pound
himself struggled for most of his adulthood with Cavalcanti's poetry,
hence the many attempts he made with one canzone in particular--an entire
book came out a few years ago documenting this struggle.
 
As regards the figure of Amor, remember that the gender trouble comes from
the fact that in the European middle ages Amor was a pagan concept (Cupid
and Venus) translated into a Christian concept (Christ's love).
 
This sort of difficulty shouldn't discourage you--as you no doubt by now
know, much of the difficulty in Pound's poetry is simply a matter of not
knowing the languages and histories.  You might remember that Pound
was neither a linguist nor a historian (even his Italian wasn't quite
perfect), which leaves you, the reader, with a good deal of control in the
reading process.  At one point Pound (I think 1939) wrote that the foreign
languages in the Cantos were a form of emphasizing ideas that appear
elsewhere, so you can proceed without the Italian, Chinese, etc.
 
My approach is to read once without worrying about what I don't know, and
then go back to identify and solve problems.  Nice work if you can get
it...
 
Jonathan Gill
Columbia University