Petrarch

(Francesco Petrarca; 1304-1374)

   Born in Arezzo, the Italian poet Petrarch was the son of an exiled Florentine notary. In 1311, his family moved to Provence, France, to benefit from the patronage of the papal court of Avignon. Petrarch remained there until 1353, though he traveled extensively during these years in Italy and France. He became one of the humanists at the papal court and spent his time studying the ancient texts, especially those written by Livy. It was in the Church of St. Claire in Avignon that he met his great love, Laura, the woman he celebrated in his Canzionere, written in the vernacular. In 1330, he took minor orders and came under the protection of the Colonna, among the most powerful feudal families of the era. At this time, Petrarch began to write. His biographies of famous Romans, De viris illustribus; his Africa, an account of the life of Scipio Africanus; and his Rerum memorandarum libri, on the cardinal virtues; all belong to this period in his life. Petrarch recovered a number of ancient texts, including Cicero's Pro Archia, which he found in Liège in 1333, and his letters, which he obtained in Verona in 1345. His writings earned him a laurel crown from the pope, an honor he received on the Capitoline Hill in Rome in April 1341. This was a practice carried out by the ancients to honor their poets, and Petrarch was the first among modern poets to be granted that tribute. Among the works Petrarch composed in Rome is his De vita solitaria in which he sought to reconcile humanism with Christianity. In 1353, he went to work for the Visconti in Milan, but later moved to Padua, Venice, and Pavia. He died in Arquà where Francesco da Carrara, Lord of Padua, had given him some land. Considered by many the father of the Renaissance, Petrarch was responsible for perfecting the Italian sonnet form, aptly called the Petrarchan sonnet. His belief in the value of studying the writings of the ancients marked the course of Renaissance intellectual and philosophical thought, while the internal conflicts he expressed in his writings became the basis for humanist debate for the next 200 years.