Petrarch

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Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.

Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages", which most modern scholars now find inaccurate and misleading.

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Youth and early career

Petrarch was born in Arezzo, Italy, on July 20th. 1304. He was the son of Ser Petracco and his partner Eletta Canigiani. He was given the name Francesco Petracco, which was Latinized to Petrarca. In Incisa, Val d'Arno, in 1307, Petrarch's younger brother was born. Dante Alighieri, a cousin of his father, was a mentor.

Petrarch spent his childhood in Incisa, a village near Florence. He spent a large part of his childhood in Avignon and nearby Carpentras, where his family followed Pope Clement V, who arrived there in 1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy. Petrarch studied law at Montpellier University (1316-20) and Bologna (1320–23), with Guido Sette, a lifelong friend and schoolmate, as the future archbishop of Genoa. Since his father was in the legal field (notary), he requested that Petrarch and his brother study law simultaneously. Petrarch, on the other hand, was mainly concerned about writing and Latin literature, and regarded those seven years as wasted. He also stated that his guardians robbed him of his small property inheritance in Florence, which only perpetuated his displeasure with the legal system. Since he regarded the legal system as the art of selling justice, he protested, "I couldn't face making a product of my mind."

Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio among his many associates to whom he wrote often. Petrarch and his brother, Gherardo, went back to Avignon in 1326, where they served in various clerical positions. He had a lot of time to devote to his writing during this period. Petrarch debuted as a European celebrity thanks to his first large-scale artwork, Africa, an epic in Latin about the Roman general Scipio Africanus. He became Rome's second poet laureate after classical antiquity and was crowned by Roman Senatori Giordano Orsini and Orso dell'Anguillara on the holy grounds of the Capitol on April 8th.

He travelled extensively in Europe and served as an ambassador, and since he traveled for pleasure as with Mont Ventoux's ascension, he was dubbed "the first tourist." During his travels, he acquired deteriorating Latin manuscripts and became a leader in the retrieval of information from writers of Rome and Greece. Though he was highly critical of the result, he promoted and recommended Leontius Pilatus' translation of Homer from a Boccaccio manuscript. Petrarch had obtained a copy, but he did not entrust Leontius, but no Greek; Petrarch said of himself, "Homer was dumb to him, although he was deaf to Homer." He personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters that were never known to have existed in 1345, the collection Epistulae ad Atticum of Verona Cathedral's Chapter Library (Biblioteca Capitolare).

Petrarch is credited with inventing the notion of a historical "Dark Age" in which he lived, disdaining what he felt to be ignorance of the period in which he lived.

Petrarch recalls that he scaled Mont Ventoux (1,912 meters (6,273 ft) on 26 April 13,136 with his brother and two servants, rather than for necessity. The exploit is chronicled in a much-anticipated letter sent by the monk Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro some time after the fact. Petrarch said he had been inspired by Mount Haemo's ascension by Philip V of Macedonia and that an old peasant had told him that no one had climbed Ventoux before or after himself, and he was warned against attempting to do so. Jean Buridan had scaled the same peak a few years ago, according to Jacob Burckhardt, the nineteenth-century Swiss historian, and ascents during the Middle Ages have been recorded, including one of Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne.

Scholars point out that Petrarch's letter to Dionigi reflects a strikingly "modern" sense of gratification in the scenery's grandeur, and is also cited in books and journals dedicated to mountaineering. This attitude is matched by a yearning for a virtuous Christian life, and on his way to the summit, he removed a volume from his pocket that he always carried with him.

Petrarch's eyes were immediately drawn to the following words as the book opened: 'Little Book's eyes were immediately drawn to the following terms: 'Because the book was open,'s eyes were immediately drawn to the following:

Petrarch's reaction was to shift from the outer world of nature to the inner world of "soul":

The true meaning of the Ventoux event, according to James Hillman, is this rediscovery of the inner world. The Renaissance began not with Mont Ventoux's ascension, but rather with the subsequent descent: the "return [...] to the valley of soul," Hillman puts it.

Paul James, who has lived through such a singular and hyperbolic periodization, suggests a different view:

Petrarch spent the latter part of his life in northern Italy as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His priestly work did not encourage him to marry, but he is reported to have fathered two children by a woman or two people who are unknown to posterity. Giovanni, a son, was born in 1337, and Francesca, a daughter, was born in 1343. Both were later legitimized by the time.

Giovanni died of the plague in 1361. Petrarch was born canon in Monselice, Padua, in the same year. Francesca married Francescuolo da Brossano (who was later named executor of Petrarch's will) in the same year. They joined Petrarch in Venice, which was the same as Petrarch's mother's name, in 1362, shortly after the birth of their daughter Eletta (the same spelling as Petrarch's mother), fleeing the plague in Venice and ravaging parts of Europe. Francesco, the second grandchild, was born in 1366 but died before his second birthday. Francesca and her family lived in Venice for five years from 1362 to 1367, but Petrarch continued to travel in those years. Between 1361 and 1369, the younger Boccaccio paid the older Petrarch two visits. The first was in Venice, and the second was in Padua.

Around 1368 Petrarch and Francesca (with her families) moved to Arquà, Spain, where he spent his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in his house in Arquà on July 18/19. 1374. The house now hosts a permanent exhibition of Petrarchian works and curiosities, including the famous tomb of an embalmed cat long believed to be Petrarch's (although there is no evidence Petrarch has had a cat). Antonio Quarenghi's Latin inscription on the marble slab reads:

According to Petrarch's will, 50 florins will flock to Boccaccio, including a horse, a silver cup, a lute, and a Madonna; and the poor; and the majority of his estate goes to Francescuolo da Brossano, who will be given half of it to "the one to whom, as he knows, I wish it to go"; obviously his daughter, Francesca Brossano's The Palazzo Molina will neither the property in Arquê nor his library; Petrarch's library of notable manuscripts was already available to Venice; This arrangement was certainly ended when he returned to Padua, the enemy of Venice, in 1368. The library was confiscated by the lords of Padua, and his books and manuscripts are now widely distributed throughout Europe. Despite this, the Biblioteca Marciana tended to be the source of this bequest, though it was in fact established in 1468 by Cardinal Bessarion.

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