PETRARCH THE MAN 



Like Dante, Petrarch was of Florentine blood; Florence 

 is, then, the mother of the last great man of the Middle 

 Ages, and of the one who is so often called the first man 

 of the Renaissance. However, this Petrarch who called 

 himself the child of two eras, spoke perhaps even truer 

 than he realized. He spent the major part of his earlier 

 hfe in France, the home of medieval culture. For many 

 years he studied law at the great schools of Mont- 

 pellier and Bologna, and, while, if we are to believe 

 him, he disliked the subject, he showed considerable 

 aptitude for it. When his father and mother died, 

 thrown upon the world, he entered the Church. His 

 relations with the Church might at the first inspection 

 seem purely external and superficial; but, as a matter of 

 fact, this apparent worldHng, who so loved classic 

 literature and the society of ladies, was truly religious, 

 religious in the medieval sense. Though he was one of 

 the long line of patriotic Italians who looked forward to 

 the restoration of Rome to its former glory, and though 

 he himself played some part — a part more showy than 

 important — in political Hfe, nevertheless, compared 

 with Latini, Mussato, and Dante, he shows himself less 

 versatile than they. He is essentially a man of private 

 life. As a student, his knowledge is not so vast as that 



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