Petrarch

Petrarch (1304-1374), Italian poet and humanist, who is considered one of the first and greatest modern lyrical poets. His perfection of the sonnet form later influenced such English poets as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and Edmund Spenser. His wide knowledge of the classical authors and his restoration of the classical Latin language earned him his reputation as the first great humanist; but he also played an important role in the development of vernacular Italian as a literary language.

Petrarch was born Francesco Petrarca on July 20, 1304, in Arezzo. Until he was eight years old, his family lived in Tuscany; then in 1312 they moved to Avignon, France. In 1326, after the death of his father, Petrarch, who had been studying law at Bologna, returned to Avignon, where he took minor orders in the Church about 1330. On Good Friday in 1327 he first saw Laura (possibly Laure de Noves, c. 1308-1348), an idealized woman whose name he was to immortalize in his lyrics and who inspired him with a passion that has become proverbial for its constancy and purity.

During a lifetime spent principally in the service of the Church and the Visconti family, Petrarch travelled widely throughout Italy as well as France, the Low Countries, and Germany. In Florence, Italy, in 1350, he met the poet Giovanni Boccaccio, with whom he had previously corresponded. Both poets became important as leaders in the rediscovery of classical antiquity, rejecting medieval scholasticism and insisting on the continuity between pagan and Christian creativity. From 1353 to 1374 Petrarch remained in Italy, in Milan, and from 1361 to 1374 in Padua, Venice, and Arquà. Possibly as a result of his travels, he developed a strong belief in the role of a unified Italy as the cultural heir of the Roman Empire. Highly respected in his lifetime, he was made Poet Laureate by the Senate of Rome in 1341. He died in Arquà on July 18 or 19, 1374. His belief in the continuity between classical culture and Christian teaching led to his founding of the movement known as European Humanism, a synthesis of these two ideals.

Petrarch wrote in Latin and in Italian. His Latin works include “Africa” (1338-1342), an epic poem about the Roman conqueror Scipio Africanus, and De viris illustribus (c. 1338, Concerning Famous Men), a series of biographies. Also in Latin are his eclogues and epistles in verse, the dialogue Secretum (1343), and the treatise De vita solitaria (1346-1356), in which he advocated a “solitary life” of nature, study, and prayer. His vast collection of letters is important for its historical and biographical details.

Petrarch's most famous work is the collection of Italian verses, Rime in vita e morta di Madonna Laura (after 1327). Better known as Canzoniere (Songbook), it has been translated into English as Petrarch's Sonnets (1931). These sonnets and odes, almost all inspired by Petrarch's unrequited passion for Laura, express the character of the man and the reality of his passion in dignified, melodious vernacular Italian. Also inspired by his love for Laura is his series of Italian poems, I Trionfi (1352-1374), detailing the gradual elevation of the human soul from earthly passion to fulfillment through God. For English poets, his chief inspiration lay in his sonnet form, which was adopted by, among others, Shakespeare, Surrey, and Wyatt. Many of Petrarch's sonnets were turned into madrigals by Monteverdi.