Petrarch
pee'trark (1304-1374), an eminent Italian poet. He ranks not only as one of the four great Italian poets, but as one of the first men in the great movement known as the revival of learning. He was born at Arezzo, thirty miles southeast of Florence. His father was a Florentine lawyer, a notary of ability. During the factional quarrels of the blacks and whites he was driven from the city, and, being unable to obtain employment, left Italy with his family when Petrarch was but seven years old. During this period, however, the lad had learned the Italian language in the region of its greatest purity. The family settled at Avignon in Provence, whither the popes had also transferred their court temporarily. Here the youth came under the influence not only of the culture of the papal court, but became imbued with the traditions and songs of the troubadours. Later he was sent to study law at the universities of Montpellier and Bologna. He distinguished himself less as a student of law than as a writer of Latin verse.
He returned to Avignon, where his talent for Latin versification commended him to the attention of Pope John XXII. Petrarch took minor orders in the Catholic church and held various unimportant ecclesiastical positions. In 1336 he went to Rome, where he busied himself in studying the antiquities of the place. During his lifetime he traveled not a little, delving in the libraries of various monasteries and universities. He unearthed a number of valuable Latin manuscripts, and had the reputation of being the most critical Latin scholar of the day. Later in life he was employed by the popes on various diplomatic missions. In 1354 we find him acting as a representative of Milan in a negotiation of peace between the republics of Genoa and Venice. Returning to his literary life, we find that, from 1337 to 1340, he lived on a small estate at Vaucluse near Avignon. Here he wrote a number of sonnets in the Italian language, inspired by a lady, real or imaginary, named Laura, whom tradition states he first saw in the church of St. Claire in Avignon. Later in life he wrote many works in Latin, including letters and various historical, political, theologic, and geographical treatises. His Latin is now forgotten. His sonnets and other poems are treasured. These serve to fix the spelling and the meaning of a great number of Italian words. His relationship to modern Italian is much like that of the King James Bible to modern English.