Francesco Petrarca, called Petrarch in English, was a late Medieval poet, humanist, and one of the leading figures of 14th-century literary society. Alognside Dante and Boccaccio, he is considered one of the three great fonti, or sources, of Italian literature.
Petrarch was born near Florence, in the city of Arezzo, in 1304 to a family of notaries that had been exiled for belonging to the White Guelph party. Despite his status as a native Aretine, Petrarch considered Florence as his true
Petrarch’s father—a friend of Dante’s—followed the Papacy’s removal to southern France under Clement V and brought his family with him to Carpentras.
At the age of twelve, Petrarch began studying at the nearby University of Montpellier; at sixteen, his father sent him to Bologna to study law. Ser Petracco expected his son to follow in his footsteps as a notary, but Petrarch much
After his father died in 1326, Petrarch returned to Avignon and, liberated from his father’s
Petrarch popularized the sonnet as the most suitable form for expressing one’s love through poetry
In 1336, Petrarch climbed Mont Ventoux, a mountain roughly 20km northeast of Carpentras, and experienced a powerful inner __ upon reaching the summit.
Aidan Valente