Thoughts from the letters of Francesco Petrarca

This booklet is a sample from our paperback edition: 'Thoughts from the letters of Francesco Petrarca'

[Petrarch] was born in 1304 into an exiled Florentine family and taken to Avignon at the age of eight. After studying law in Montpellier and Bologna, he stayed in Avignon from 1326 to 1353.

During this time he made several long journeys into Italy. In 1353 he moved to Italy and spent the rest of his life there, mainly in Milan, Venice and Padua.

Thoughts from the letters of Francesco Petrarca

The letters of Petrarca date from the year 1326, when he was twenty-two years old, to 1374, the year of his death. They were written in Latin, and the old texts are to be found in the libraries of Florence and Rome. There are also some in Paris, in Turin, in Padua, and one in the Bodleian Library in London. Sixteen Latin editions were published between 1484 and 1601.

Petrarca corresponded with the most famous and learned men of his age, with statesmen, theologians, courtiers, princes, doges. emperors, and popes. His letters contain true and vivid pictures of his own time (1304-1374).

They reveal how much the world owes to him for educating the human intellect and opening the way to conscience. Those who only know Petrarca by his Sonnets, cannot fully understand his true genius.

The Latin writings include poems, orations, historical works and a large body of letters. It is mainly in these writings and in his letters that we have to look for Petrarca's ideas.

Since Petrarca's ideas are never stated in a systematic fashion, we must try to reconstruct them from a number of scattered remarks.

Details

• Paperback with dust jacket   
  
• Condition: New
  
• ISBN: 9072395050
• Publisher: Eureka Editions