34 Facts About Petrarch

1.

Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.

2.

Petrarch was later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the.

3.

Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry.

4.

Petrarch is known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages".

5.

Petrarch was the son of Ser Petracco and his wife Eletta Canigiani.

6.

Petrarch's given name was Francesco Petracco, which was Latinized to Petrarca.

7.

Petrarch's younger brother was born in Incisa in Val d'Arno in 1307.

8.

Petrarch spent his early childhood in the village of Incisa, near Florence.

9.

Petrarch spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby Carpentras, where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V, who moved there in 1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy.

10.

Petrarch studied law at the University of Montpellier and Bologna with a lifelong friend and schoolmate, Guido Sette, future archbishop of Genoa.

11.

Petrarch was primarily interested in writing and Latin literature and considered these seven years wasted.

12.

Petrarch often got too distracted by his non-legal interests, that his father once threw his books into a fire, which he later lamented for.

13.

Petrarch protested, "I couldn't face making a merchandise of my mind", since he viewed the legal system as the art of selling justice.

14.

Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio among his notable friends to whom he wrote often.

15.

Petrarch traveled widely in Europe, served as an ambassador, and, because he traveled for pleasure, as with his ascent of Mont Ventoux, has been called "the first tourist".

16.

Petrarch encouraged and advised Leontius Pilatus's translation of Homer from a manuscript purchased by Boccaccio, although he was severely critical of the result.

17.

Petrarch had acquired a copy, which he did not entrust to Leontius, but he knew no Greek; Petrarch said of himself, "Homer was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer".

18.

Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited with creating the concept of a historical "Dark Ages", which most modern scholars now find inaccurate and misleading.

19.

Petrarch's response was to turn from the outer world of nature to the inner world of "soul":.

20.

Petrarch spent the later part of his life journeying through northern Italy as an international scholar and poet-diplomat.

21.

However, Petrarch was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and did most of his writing in this language.

22.

Petrarch translated seven psalms, a collection known as the Penitential Psalms.

23.

Petrarch published many volumes of his letters, including a few written to long-dead figures from history such as Cicero and Virgil.

24.

Petrarch collected his letters into two major sets of books called Rerum familiarum liber and Seniles, both of which are available in English translation.

25.

Petrarch channeled his feelings into love poems that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who pursue women.

26.

Petrarch is very different from Dante and his Divina Commedia.

27.

Petrarch confessed to Boccaccio that he had never read the Commedia, remarks Contini, wondering whether this was true or Petrarch wanted to distance himself from Dante.

28.

Finally, Petrarch's enjambment creates longer semantic units by connecting one line to the following.

29.

Petrarch is often referred to as the father of humanism and considered by many to be the "father of the Renaissance".

30.

Petrarch inspired humanist philosophy, which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance.

31.

Petrarch was a devout Catholic and did not see a conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith, although many philosophers and scholars have styled him a Proto-Protestant who challenged the Pope's dogma.

32.

Petrarch's influence is evident in the works of Serafino Ciminelli from Aquila and in the works of Marin Drzic from Dubrovnik.

33.

Petrarch is credited with being the first and most famous aficionado of Numismatics.

34.

Petrarch described visiting Rome and asking peasants to bring him ancient coins they would find in the soil which he would buy from them, and writes of his delight at being able to identify the names and features of Roman emperors.