Petrarch
20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374
Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet of the early Renaissance, often called the father of humanism. His rediscovery of classical Latin texts and his Italian lyric poetry, especially the sonnets of the Canzoniere addressed to Laura, profoundly shaped European literature. He was crowned poet laureate in Rome in 1341.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Petrarch.
- Guillaume de Machaut (1300–1377) Overlapped 70 years →
- Ibn Battuta (1304–1369) Overlapped 65 years →
- Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) Overlapped 61 years →
- Gajah Mada (1290–1364) Overlapped 60 years →
- Nicole Oresme (1320–1382) Overlapped 54 years →
- Hafez (1325–1390) Overlapped 49 years →
Life events
Petrarch was born in Arezzo, Tuscany, on 20 July 1304, the son of a Florentine notary in political exile.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn 1312 Petrarch's family relocated to the region of Avignon, seat of the papal court, where his father sought employment.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAt his father's insistence Petrarch studied law, first at Montpellier from 1316 and then at Bologna from 1320, before abandoning the profession.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAccording to Petrarch's own account, he first saw Laura, the inspiration for his love poetry, in the church of Sainte-Claire in Avignon on 6 April 1327.
Petrarch described climbing Mont Ventoux on 26 April 1336 in a famous letter, an episode often cited as emblematic of Renaissance curiosity.
Petrarch was crowned poet laureate on the Capitoline Hill in Rome on 8 April 1341, the first such coronation since antiquity.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn 1345 Petrarch found a manuscript of Cicero's previously unknown letters to Atticus in the cathedral library of Verona, a landmark of humanist scholarship.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn 1353 Petrarch settled in Milan under the patronage of the Visconti rulers, serving them in diplomatic missions for some eight years.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAround 1370 Petrarch moved to the village of Arquà near Padua, where he spent his final years continuing to revise the Canzoniere.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPetrarch died at his home in Arquà on 19 July 1374, one day before his seventieth birthday.
Source: en.wikipedia.org