How Did Petrarch Impact The Renaissance

Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) was an Italian scholar, poet, and early humanist during the reformation of the Renaissance period. He was one of the greatest poets of the 14th-16th century, and is regarded as the father of the humanist movement. Petrarch was a prolific writer. Not only was he known for poetry in Italian and Latin, but also hundreds of letters, essays and histories. Like Dante, a generation before Petrarch wrote in a vernacular style to bring Italian a literary language.

Humanism was a very key and important part of the Renaissance outlook on education because it led to a further study of Greek and Roman culture. Humanism led to many Greek and Roman influences on the Renaissance period.

It would make sense that the “Father of Humanism” would be from Florence, the epicenter of the Italian Renaissance. Much of his work had a modern element because he probed his own feelings in his writings. This would go with the Renaissance theme of the rediscovery of human glory due to the fact that Petrarch often looked within himself. Petrarch was also a devote Christian and believed that they meshed well. Petrarch being a Christian humanist agrees with the first article and with the belief of humanists of returning to the sources. I found it surprising how centralized Petrarch’s beliefs were in Christianity considering he was a humanist during the Italian Renaissance. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote during the Northern European Renaissance because they were more faith oriented and were known as Christina humanists. Petrarch criticizes his contemporaries and dialecticians on being ignorant of antiquity. He condemns them for mocking ancient philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Pythagoras whose works are later glorified during the Renaissance. The fact that these philosophers were later admired and emulated during the Renaissance shows how quickly humanist’s beliefs caught on due to society’s need for culture after the dark Middle

Humanism played a huge role in the Italian Renaissance as it changed the landscape of the Italians. The definition of Humanism is “an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.” It relation to the Italian humanism It’s the influence of behavior that relate to the goodness of humanity as all humans are good. The Italians were influenced by the romans because the romans have done great things even though in the views of Christian they deserved to go to hell.

The Renaissance period was impacted by humanism strongly because people were now starting to realize, they weren’t just peasants that worked for a lord but they too were people that could make their own decisions. People valued their self-worth now, and they wanted to learn about reading, writing, and the

From art brought on by the Medici family, to literature produced by some of the most well-known and renowned authors, concepts of humanism emerged. This then resulted in a more positive outlook on life during the Italian Renaissance. Moreover, Francesco Petrarch, the “Father of Humanism,” paved the way for successful eras in Florence, the epicenter of the Renaissance. The conditions of Rome as described by both Baldassare Castiglione and Dante Alighieri crucially inspired the artistic and literary Renaissance of Italy. Reviving Rome lead to a faith in humans, allowing revolutions to build off of the past, as opposed to starting from the beginning. Obviously key factors as demonstrated by the infamous writers Baldassare Castiglione and Dante Alighieri forever and crucially impacted western

“Man has no greater enemy than himself” according to Petrarch, a poet who lived from 1304-1374, and the inventor of the sonnet. The Renaissance was a time period from 14th to the 17th century, and was the bridge from the Middle Ages to modern history. An Italian scholar, poet, and the father of humanism, Petrarch helped develop a style of poetry known as the sonnet. In addition, Petrarch was relevant to the Renaissance because he inspired Shakespeare and other Renaissance poets as well as modern philosophy and thought.

Humanism is surrounded by humans, that humans are the most high and most developed on the universe. Basically Humanism is based off political, ethical, and economical matter and values but disregards the basic questions (Sheldon 1). Humanism has been associated with the Renaissance, which was an artistic movement that started around the 1400’s and lasting for two years. “The idea of the ‘modern’ period in human history as distinct from the ‘ ancient’ and ‘middle’ or ‘ dark age’ originated with humanist during the Renaissance” (“Renaissance Humanism”1). There was an effect on renaissance ideas, “an effect of Renaissance ideas on perception of history was the replacing of a providential view of time with an ancient cyclical and Arabic astrological perspective” (Sheldon 1). Finally the Renaissance spread across the map to Alps, Germany. The Renaissance turned into a strong moral and a forceful education. The Germans cared more about what’s within than the outlooks of life or things (Biesinger 3). Renaissance came along way. “The founder of Renaissance humanism was Petrarch (1304-1374)” (“Humanism” 1). Petrarch’s birth name is Francesco Petrarca and he was

He adds that there is too much credit given to Renaissance artists, that they “were really rather medieval. They were more traditional in their behavior, assumptions and ideals than we tend to think—and also more traditional than they saw themselves” (Burke, 172). That does not mean to say that Renaissance men were not influential, just not as progressive as they believed themselves to be. Petrarch is considered extraordinary for reintroducing and defending pagan classical works in a culture dominated by the Catholic Church. He writes in his Letter to Boccaccio that “to desert out studies shows want of self-confidence rather than wisdom, for letters do not hinder but aid the properly constituted mind which possesses them; they facilitate our life, they do not retard it” (Petrarch, 162). Petrarch’s contribution was still significant, but it was not the first of its

The Renaissance was a cultural, economic, and political movement that emerged in Italy in the fifteenth century. The Renaissance marked the leap from the Medieval era to the Modern Age and brought with it a great cultural transformation, not only of the arts, but also of the sciences, letters and forms of thought. Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola were two Renaissance men who changed the ideals and ways of seeing the world that emerged during the Medieval Age. In the letter "The Ascent of Mount Ventoux", Petrarch describes his human experience when he climbed Mount Ventoux with his brother and his two servants.

Francesco Petrarca was born on July 20th, 1304 in Arezzo, Italy, to Ser and Eletta Petracco, and died July 19th, 1374. Not only is Petrarch referred to as the “Father of Humanism, but also as the “Father of the Renaissance”. To be the greatest humanitarian holds much meaning, but most of all it means to create needed change in the most dire of situations when others will not. Without a doubt, Petrarch was the greatest humanitarian of all European history, because he had struggled to become the person he was, he is considered to be the first humanitarian, and he not only influenced many other greats but he also influenced the beginning of the Renaissance, although some can argue that he was not the greatest humanitarian, because he is more

in the middle years of the fourteenth century, the Italian scholar and poet Petrarch looked at his world with fresh, often critical, eyes and found it wanting. In place of the scholastic learning and medieval values of his day, he looked back to the literature and philosophy of the pagan and Christian ancient world for inspiration and advice on how to live. By the time of his death in 1374, Petrarch had acquired Followers who shared his vision. By about 1400 a group of Italian scholars and men from other walks of life had created an intellectual movement called humanism that was simultaneously ethical, philosophical, pedagogical, and rhetorical. They had begun to transform Italian and European

All in all, Petrarch made a new beginning and made an everlasting impression on the western civilization when he founded humanism, and created new ideas that people

That being said, one of the earliest and most influential humanist writers was Francesco Petrarch, who also held the title as the founder of humanism. On April 6, 1341, Petrarch was crowned Poet Laureate in the Capitol of Rome, and many historians argue this day as the true beginning of the Renaissance. Petrarch believed that eloquence, ethics, and wisdom were lost during the Middle Ages and was adamant about expressing his hatred for the corruption caused by the people of that period. Petrarch took inspiration from the writings of the ancients, especially Virgil and Cicero. He is a prime example in showing that although humanists still maintained their faith and believed in an afterlife, they felt that their lives on Earth should be rich

At the core of the humanist agenda was the idea of virtue, or behavior with a great moral standard. A man named Francesco Petrarch helped to found these beliefs, by studying classic Roman sources such as the scholar Cicero. Petrarch believed that these classics works could teach someone to be wise and virtuous (class notes). He helped to make Humanism a popular movement among intellectuals of the time and cement the idea that the classical works could help guide humans to live a virtuous and wise