Petrarch

Examples of Petrarch in the following topics:

• Petrarch

  • Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance.
  • Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism.
  • In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works.
  • Petrarch was born in the Tuscan city of Arezzo in 1304.
  • Petrarch spent his early childhood in the village of Incisa, near Florence.

• Renaissance Writers

  • The humanist Francesco Petrarch, a key figure in the renewed sense of scholarship, was also an accomplished poet, publishing several important works of poetry.
  • Petrarch's disciple, Giovanni Boccaccio, became a major author in his own right.
  • A generation before Petrarch and Boccaccio, Dante Alighieri set the stage for Renaissance literature.
  • The foundation of Bruni's conception can be found with Petrarch, who distinguished the classical period from later cultural decline, or tenebrae (literally "darkness").
  • He was also the author of biographies in Italian of Dante and Petrarch.

• Humanism

  • Some of the first humanists were great collectors of antique manuscripts, including Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Coluccio Salutati, and Poggio Bracciolini.
  • Of the three, Petrarch was dubbed the "Father of Humanism" because of his devotion to Greek and Roman scrolls.
  • Many worked for the organized Church and were in holy orders (like Petrarch), while others were lawyers and chancellors of Italian cities (such as Petrarch's disciple Salutati, the Chancellor of Florence) and thus had access to book copying workshops.

• Introduction to the Renaissance

  • As a cultural movement, the Renaissance encompassed the innovative flowering of Latin and vernacular literatures, beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on classical sources, which contemporaries credited to Petrarch, the development of linear perspective and other techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform.
  • Many argue that the ideas characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in late 13th-century Florence, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the paintings of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337).

• The Rise of the Vernacular

  • At Florence the most celebrated humanists wrote also in the vulgar tongue, and commented on Dante and Petrarch, and defended them from their enemies.
  • The earliest Renaissance literature appeared in 14th century Italy; Dante, Petrarch and Machiavelli are notable examples of Italian Renaissance writers.

• Splitting History

  • Petrarch, Italian poet and thinker, conceived of the idea of a European "Dark Age," which later evolved into the tripartite periodization of Western history into Ancient, Middle Ages and Modern.

• Italian Politics

  • It was during this period of instability that the Renaissance authors such as Dante and Petrarch lived, and the first stirrings of Renaissance art were to be seen, notably in the realism of Giotto.

• Arts and Sciences

  • The application of the vernacular did not entail a rejection of Latin, and both Dante and Boccaccio wrote prolifically in Latin as well as Italian, as would Petrarch later (whose Canzoniere also promoted the vernacular and whose contents are considered the first modern lyric poems).