Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters

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About this book

The volume selects correspondence with Boccaccio and other friends to illustrate the beginnings of the Renaissance, with historical introductions and notes. The introductory account says Petrarch aspired to be both poet and scholar, while finding his later choice of a principal claim to fame difficult to determine. The account explains that poetry, for Petrarch, embraced only Latin verse in its classical form.

A letter describes a planned departure delayed by friends whose pleasant, varied conversation held the writer until night approached. The letter writer calls conversation with friends an unnoticed thief of time, yet considers time spent upon friends scarcely lost. The account of Francesco's discouragement says he had approached burning the unfinished manuscript of his Africa.

About the author

Francesco Petrarca

Francesco Petrarca, commonly known in English as Petrarch, was a fourteenth-century Italian poet and scholar whose lyric verse helped establish the form later called the Petrarchan sonnet. Fifteen Sonnets of Petrarch presents a small bilingual selection from that tradition, with Italian and English arranged on facing pages.