The Age of Humanism:
Petrarch’s Role
Jess Sautter
Beginnings of Humanism
• Early Humanism formed in a culture
spiritually determined by mendicant friars
(Dominicans and Franciscans)
• Voluntary poverty was the center of true
Christian conduct
• In the fourteenth century, scholarship
shifted from the hands of the Church to the
hands of laymen such as lawyers and
doctors.
– These men revived the classical studies of
Greece and Rome
– Instead of focusing exclusively on God and
religion, they were more interested in human
aspects such as culture, society, and values.
Principles of Humanism
• Salutati
– Man is responsible for his good or bad deeds
– God does not control a man’s will or morality
– It is better to benefit others by living an active
public life than to live as a monk, which does
not benefit anyone other than the monk
Principles of Humanism
• Bruni
– Medieval values of piety, humility, and poverty
not important
– Attitudes about wealth, credit finances, and
usury modified
– Pagan elements introduced into Christian
culture
• Emphasized the dignity and worth of the
individual
• People are rational beings who possess within
themselves the capacity for truth and goodness
• Emphasized the value of the Greek and Latin
classics for their own sake, rather than for their
relevance to Christianity
• Collection and translation of classical manuscripts
• Inspired by Plato (Aristotle inspired medieval
scholarship)
• Centered around education
• Attempted to develop the character and
intelligence of pupils by a general literary study of
the ancient classics
• Interested in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history,
and ethics as an alternative to the Scholastic
curriculum which laid emphasis on logic, natural
philosophy (science), medicine, law, and theology
• Humanism was mostly a new educational
discipline, not a philosophy of life
• To write well and speak effectively, it is necessary
to closely study and to imitate the ancient classics
• Created a new mental outlook by establishing that
the study of ancient literature and the writing of
new works based on this inspiration contributes
directly to the dignity, usefulness, and happiness
of human beings
• Stimulated critical attitudes and freed minds from
the old systems
• Lessened the ecclesiastical monopoly of learning
and challenged philosophy to deal with practical
subjects such as ethics
• Revived ancient literary forms such as the
dialogue, essay, familiar letter, comedy, tragedy,
ode, and the literary treatment of history,
biography, moral philosophy, and political theory
• Ideal life is dedicated to scholarship
• Values of the Civis Romanus influenced and
nurtured the idea of ceaseless activity of the mind
• New solutions to all political, social, artistic, and
ethical problems could be found in the classics
• Humanism sought for polish and elegance of
diction, ease and wit in expression, and, at the
same time, they wished to avoid involved
argument, subtle distinctions, and all obscure
terminology
• Restored the whole surviving heritage of Greek
and Latin literature, edited all of it, and, later,
brought out printed editions of the whole
• Introduced the idea of a lay morality which laid
stress on ethical conduct as an end in itself.
• Increased the sense of the dignity of man and
emphasized what man can do for himself
Factions of Humanism
• Stoic—Rely on the power of reason alone to
achieve contentment
– Neither material goods nor misfortune should have any
meaning
– Stoicism in a Christian framework was popular in
intellectual circles as a remedy for the affluent and
commercialized age
– Life of poverty is necessary for a wise man’s
independence of mind
– Every step from poverty to wealth was bound to
increase human desire, greed, passion, unrest, and
misery
• Christian-Neoplatonist
• Aristotelian-Epicurean
Francesco Petrarch
• Born in Arezzo in 1304
after his father was
banished from Florence
• Began to study law in
1316 because his father
wanted him to
• His father died in 1326
and Petrarch abandoned
his legal studies;
discovered Cicero, Vergil,
and the Latin classics;
began his exclusive
devotion to literature
• In 1327 he accepted minor ecclesiastical
vows but did not accept powerful or
prestigious positions
• Traveled through Europe 1327-1336
• Given the title of Poet Laureate in 1340
• Returned permanently to Italy in 1353
Two Periods of Petrarch’s Life
• Great boldness
Influenced solely by
ancient philosophers
• Ignored his “true self”
because of too many
distractions (fame,
success of Laura
sonnets, title of Poet
Laureate)
• Awareness of the
insufficiency of his
earlier way of life
• Need to identify more
closely with
contemporary ways of
thinking introduced
during the Christian
Era
The First Modern Intellectual
• Petrarch had a deep understanding of what ancient
Latin and Greek literature had been in antiquity
• He was very interested in making literature the
greatest of intellectual activities
• Founded philology, the systematic and scientific
study of all literary and linguistic phenomena
• Made poetry his sole profession
Petrarch and Politics
• He was not involved in politics
• He had a sentimental and intellectual attachment
to Italy
• He was interested in individual affairs, not in
political affairs
• He viewed Italy as a centralized unity under Rome
and, influenced by the history of classical times,
had ideas of a republic or a universal empire
• Petrarch believed that the Vita solitaria was the
supreme standard for living
– A truly wise man is focused on intellectual and spiritual
matters, not distracting political problems
Petrarch and Solitude
• He felt that being alone, in the absence of
avarice, was the secret to happiness
• He was happiest when he lived by himself
in his country home
• He never truly integrated into any group or
society that he joined
• Autonomy and freedom were needed to
apply himself to his humanistic studies
Petrarch and wealth
• Petrarch hated wealth, power, and external honors
– It was not the wealth itself that he hated, but the
anxiety, toil, and trouble connected with it
• He said he would rather live in bitter, abject
poverty than be wealthy
• At another time, however, he said that he would
rather be wealthy because living in poverty is only
bearable for those who do it in the name of Christ
• One should not escape wealth, but one should not
possess it “with an avaricious mind”
Petrarch as a Humanist
• Belonged to the Stoic faction
• However, he often had warm emotional reactions,
which are more characteristic of a Christian, not
Stoic, attitude
• Felt that all of Medieval culture was uniformly
barbarous…classical-minded scholars and poets
were needed to lead humanity away from the arid
Scholastic rationalizing and the cultural
degradation into which it had been sunk ever since
the Barbarian Migrations
• Influenced by Horace, Lucan, Statius, Persius,
Juvenal, Martial, Cicero, Livy, Seneca, and Caesar
• Petrarch wanted to pull himself out of the physical
and mental world around him to live imaginatively
in Roman antiquity
• He loved the classical ways of feeling, thinking,
and writing
• He admired the polish, elegance, and perfection of
form of the Classics as opposed to the un-Roman
Latin of the Middle Ages
• He took words, methods of sentence structure,
figures of speech, and stories from the Latin
classics and gave them a new European life
• Petrarch had intellectual autonomy and an
aesthetic, political, and moral outlook on life
• He combined Classical-pagan and
Christian-Medieval elements into universal
humanism, which states that sentiments,
conscience, and self-analysis are a part of
every human being, not just pagan or
Christian
Petrarch’s Works
• All of his works contain self-analysis,
meditation, internal dilemmas, and crisis
concerning moral and cultural values
“Secret Conflict of My Desires”
• Petrarch states he had difficulties while
attempting to resolve the inner conflicts
between reason and emotion
• He puts forth the passions which had
pushed him from one false, petty goal to
another
• Struggles to conquer the passions which
stem from his lower nature
Canzoniere
• Manifests the beginning of
modern consciousness
– An awareness of the end of
the great dogma of divine
providence which had held
much power before
– As a result, man realizes his
tragic destiny, his isolation,
and analyzes his continuous
sense of dissatisfaction and
oscillation between
opposing feelings
• Petrarch seeks the absolute, divine, and
eternal. He experiences anxiety because he
cannot cast off his worldly concerns, such
as fame and glory, and therefore cannot
achieve spiritual peace
• The surface meaning of the work indicates a
story of unfulfilled love and the different
emotions that the lover goes through;
however, there are no concrete facts to point
to this interpretation
– Petrarch’s love for Laura impedes his search for
control over and distancing from his human
aspirations and desires
• Conflict between divinity (religion and
reason) and humanity (desire, passion,
enthusiasm, and poetic activity)
• Petrarch searches for truth while at the same
time experiencing conflict between what he
is and what he should be
• The style of the work is based on classical
Latin style
Letter to Posterity
•
•
•
•
Autobiography with moral considerations
Classical style
Statements about love really concern literature
“I have always possessed an extreme contempt for
wealth; not that riches are not desirable in
themselves, but because I hate the anxiety and care
which are invariably associated with them. I
certainly do not long to be able to give gorgeous
banquets. I have, on the contrary, led a happier
existence with plain living and ordinary fare than
all the followers of Apicius, with their elaborate
dainties.”
• “I fled, however, from many of those to
whom I was greatly attached; and such was
my innate longing for liberty, that I
studiously avoided those whose very name
seemed incompatible with the freedom that
I loved.”
• “I possessed a well-balanced rather than a
keen intellect, one prone to all kinds of
good and wholesome study, but especially
inclined to moral philosophy and the art of
poetry.”
• “Among the many subjects which interested me, I
dwelt especially on antiquity, for our own age has
always repelled me, so that, had it not been for the
love of those dear to me, I should have preferred
to have been born in any other period than our
own. In order to forget my own time, I have
constantly striven to place myself in spirit in other
ages, and consequently I am delighted in history.”
• “I gave up the subject [law] altogether, however,
so soon as it was no longer necessary to consult
the wishes of my parents. My reason was that,
although the dignity of the law, which is doubtless
very great, and especially the numerous references
it contains to Roman antiquity, did not fail to
delight me, I felt it to be habitually degraded by
those who practise it.”
• “He offered to bestow that honour upon me at
Naples, and urged me to consent to receive it
there, but my veneration for Rome prevailed over
the insistence of even so great a monarch as
Robert.”
• “Who, nowadays, could hope to equal one who, in
my judgment, was the greatest in an age fertile in
great minds?” (Augustine)
• “Had I been of riper age I should not have desired
it. The aged love what is practical, while
impetuous youth longs only for what is dazzling.
The laurel brought me no increase of learning or
literary power, as you may well imagine, while it
destroyed my peace by the infinite jealousy it
aroused.”
• “I believe that I speak but the strict truth
when I claim that as there is none among
earthly delights more noble than literature,
so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or
more fruitful; there is none which
accompanies its possessor through the
vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of
effort or anxiety.”
Petrarch’s Contributions to
Humanism
• Recognition of the true features of classical Latin
prose and poetry
• Admiration for Cicero
• Passion for collecting ancient manuscripts
• Perception that the future of classical scholarship
depended upon the recovery of Greek works
• Support for Humanism among the rich and
powerful
• Reconciliation between pagan and Christian ways
of thinking
Petrarch’s Influence on
Humanism
• Petrarch was concerned with individual matters,
not general problems
• As a consequence, few humanists of the next
generations were directly influenced by him
• Petrarch did not influence many of his fellow
humanists, either, because his life was so different
than theirs (isolationism)
• However, Petrarch is still considered to be the
father of Humanism because he broke with
tradition and completely changed the way people
thought, learned, and lived.