Renaissance Discoveries: Petrarch

In this video we look at Petrarch (1304-1374), the poet and scholar who has been called ‘the ‘founder of modern European culture’ and even ‘the first modern man’. He was modern not so much because he looked forward but, ironically, because he cast his gaze back, a thousand years and more into the past, to the writers of antiquity. Looking at the ruins of his own civilisation, he believed poets and historians needed to forge a better future by coming to terms with the past, and by making the precious legacy of the past come to life in the present.

[@stevepeterson9579]

Ross, thanks for the knowledge. I just realized you were in Godfathers of the Renaissance. I still show clips of it in my Humanities course at Tulsa Community College. Brilliant series!

[@rossking3163]

Thank you. The people who made that series were great to work with. I'm amazed at how often it still pops up - including once on an Air Canada flight I took! It's now almost 20 years old.

[@stevepeterson9579]

@@rossking3163 The narrator was phenomenal!

[@JohnSmith-ws7fq]

Fascinating and wonderfully spoken, thank you!

[@rossking3163]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.

[@noeliabarbero5622]

Great video, thank you!

[@rossking3163]

Thank you - glad you liked it!

[@aalb1873]

Petrarch was the first to describe a mountaineering climb. He reached the top of Mont Ventoux in Provence. His brother Gherardo and a friend accompanied him.

[@rossking3163]

Thank you. Yes - it's a lovely episode. It's often described as the 'start of the Renaissance', but in fact Petrarch turned to a book by St. Augustine at the top and then at the end of his climb he chastised those who climb mountains. He says that our goal should be to 'trample beneath us those appetites which spring from earthly impulses'. So he's still very 'medieval'. His speech in Rome is far more important ... but no one ever reads it. His account of his climb of Mount Ventoux can be read here: sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/petrarch-ventoux.asp

[@fountainpen44]

Did Petrarch rediscover or actually invent antiquity?

[@rossking3163]

I suppose it would be possible to say that Petrarch ‘invented’ antiquity (or at least recognised it as a specific and separate period in history) because he was the one who identified and named it. Before him, the ancient world had never been christened with a collective noun, but it came to be known by him and his followers as 'antiquitas' or 'vetustas' (ancient times). During his visit to Rome in 1341 he divided the city into ‘antique’ and ‘nove’ (modern or new)-the firm and handy dividing line being the Christianisation of the Empire. We’re used to these sorts of ancient/modern divisions these days, whether in Rome or other cities, but in the 1300s it represented a completely knew way of looking at both topography and history. In the medieval world, the past coexisted with the present, without any temporal distinction-as indicated in medieval Rome by the repurposing of ancient monuments for present use (the Pantheon as a church, the Mausoleum of Hadrian as the Castel Sant’Angelo, the Colosseum as a palace for clans such as the Frangipani … ). Not sure if that answers your question! The key thing is that he regarded antiquity as qualitatively different from the period (the ‘dark ages’) that followed: to him it was a time of political and cultural glory whose brilliance needed to be recaptured. No one else had looked at the past in that way before. So the past that he ‘invented’ is one that could come to the rescue of the present.

[@8080janei]

What was his art works ??

[@rossking3163]

I’m sure Petrarch could have been a good painter if he tried his hand at it. He certainly seemed able to succeed at everything else. However, as far as we know he never took up a paintbrush - just a pen for poetry and scholarship.

[@the98thcent]

With the whole 'It's possible that my name has come down to you' - which is from his letter about his life - isn't it blatant false modesty, especially as he'd been crowned as poet laureate at this point and clearly had a huge ego? Also I'd say someone who tries to predict the future is a futurologist, not a prophet; a prophet is someone who is actually able to see the future, surely.

[@the98thcent]

I don't mean to be critical - I love the connections you make such as Petrarch in exile like his father, or Petrarch trying to save classics from the flames!

[@the98thcent]

I think the idea that Petrarch was the first to be nostalgic for the classical period is refuted by the fact that the older Dante, to pluck one example, also longed for the return of the Golden Age, and idolised pagan poets such as Virgil.

[@the98thcent]

When you say Petrarch's Laura died of the plague - it isn't certain Laura existed, much less that she died of the plague. Any connection with Laura de Noves is purely speculative.

[@rossking3163]

Thanks for your comments. Regarding his false modesty, I don’t think he was being entirely disingenuous when he fretted about whether his name and his works would survive. He was haunted throughout his life by the loss of books and knowledge from the ancient world - and I think he feared a similar fate for himself. Acclaim in his lifetime was one thing, in posterity quite another.