Petrarca, Francesco

Abstract

Petrarch is the poet who above all perfected the original Vulgar Italian tongue, developing its melodious elegance and thus providing a model of verse composition for later writers, both Italian and European. He embodied the original modern intellectual, ready to travel the “world” for his work, eager to meet new colleagues for professional and cultural exchanges, and determined to conduct field research as he uncovered lost texts from the classical tradition. Petrarch’s contribution to the literary and more generally intellectual world is priceless. He was completely devoted to culture in a more practical sense, unearthing a number of important manuscripts and laying the foundations for a new concept of the public library, promoting the dissemination of information after centuries of oblivion. Petrarch also pioneered the genre of intimate and personal dialogue with past authors, addressing them in letters (Epistolae) and in the Secretum, his own personal “diary,” constructing a cultural continuum based on the transmission of knowledge. His literary works, both in Latin and in Vulgar Italian, are still considered among the most influential in the late Middle Ages, especially as an inspiration for Renaissance Humanism, not only for their style but also for their adaptation of classical poems and philosophical treatises.

For Petrarch’s biography, we have much more evidence than for contemporaries such as Dante or Boccaccio, in no small measure, because he wanted to devote more time to his studies in order to skirt the political and religious controversies of his times. His work in Law, in tandem with his renowned cultural background, enabled him to serve as Counselor to a number of important figures of State and Church, but he always managed to steer clear of risky professional associations, so that he could apply himself to his writing.

His method of writing poems gave rise to “Petrarchism,” defined as the formal poetic style introduced by Petrarch. But this is not merely a literary expression that aims to evoke the themes, images, and stylistic figures of his poetry; it is also a way of life, both intellectual and spiritual.