Petrarch "The Father of Humanism”
Usually, when we discuss various eras of poetry, we jump directly from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance without considering the names that paved the way for new trends. One of those names is Petrarch, whose philosophy influenced poets for centuries. Francesco Petrarca was born on July 20, 1304 in Arezzo, Tuscany (now Italy). In France; Petrarca studied law, as his father had wished. After his father’s death in 1326, Petrarch left law to focus on the classics.
The model for the modern Italian language is based on the work of Petrarch along with Boccaccio and, to a lesser extent, Dante. He traveled extensively and has been called the “first tourist” because his trip was only for pleasure. During this tour, he collected many lost Latin manuscripts. As Petrarch learned more about the classical period, he began to revere that time and complained about the limitations of his own time. He disdained the ignorance of the Middle Ages and for the first time developed the concept of the “Dark Ages”. Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as “dark” in comparison to the light of classical antiquity. Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models, and they are frequently cited in Petrarch’s work.
Already in search of a true meaning of life, dissatisfied with contemporary work, Petrarch’s vision was completely transformed during his visit to Mount Ventoux. His experience revealed to him that these natural phenomena have fixed him in a certain static way. A walk through the vast unexplored world of the human soul will quench his thirst for knowledge and quench his restless self. Petrarch fights within himself, not against anything outside. At this point, Petrarch passed from the outer world of nature to the inner world of the soul. As he quoted from the Confessions of Saint Augustine;
And men will marvel at the heights of the mountains, and the powerful waves of the sea, and the breadth of the rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but they do not consider themselves.
Very irritated by the stagnant form of literature and art, confined to the false standards of Christianity, Petrarch dared to develop a fusion of modern ideas. There is a continuous struggle between sensuality and mysticism, as well as profane and Christian literature in his work. His well-known book “Secretum” asserts that secular achievement does not necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God. Petrarch argued instead that God had given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to their fullest. His enthusiastic spread of ancient culture that centered on the idea of man as the measure of all things instigated the process of change that gained momentum in the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the American Revolution. He believed in the study of human thought and action. Petrarch was a devout Catholic and saw no conflict between realizing humanity’s potential and having religious faith.
Petrarch fought for the proper relationship between the active and the contemplative life, and tended to emphasize the importance of solitude and study. As one of the world’s first classical scholars, Petrarch revealed vast amounts of knowledge in the lost texts he discovered. His philosophy of humanism ended the Middle Ages and helped foster the intellectual growth and achievements of the Renaissance.