The Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374), or Francesco Petrarca, is best known for the Iyric poetry of his Canzoniere and is considered one of the greatest love poets of world literature. A scholar of classical antiquity, he was the founder of humanism.

Petrarch has been called the first modern man. He observed the external world and analyzed his own interior life with a new awareness of values. Painfully conscious of human transience, he felt it his mission to bridge the ages and to save the classical authors from the ravages of time for posterity. He also longed for fame and for permanence in the future. Petrarch attained a vast direct knowledge of classical texts, subjecting them to critical evaluation and prizing them as an expression of the living human spirit. His attitude provided the first great stimulus to the cultural movement that culminated in the Renaissance.

Petrarch's life was...