PETRARCH THE MAN 



of Roger Bacon, but he is a real scholar, with wide 

 interests; and he furnishes the first example, since 

 antiquity, of a man surrendering himself entirely to the 

 cultivation of letters. It is not altogether easy to know 

 how to begin further treatment of him : as the restorer of 

 intelUgent appreciation of the classics; as the apostle 

 of a new conception of man's place in the universe, and 

 of the individuaPs relations to God and to his fellows; 

 as a literary craftsman, whether in Latin or in the ver- 

 nacular; as a scholar; or as a poet. In his own behef, 

 it was as a humanist that he was destined to obtain 

 fame. Nowadays, however, according to general 

 opinion, his fame rests upon his Italian verse, which he 

 affected to depise. Another view, very stoutly upheld, 

 a recent one, is that, however remarkable his poetry may 

 be, and whatever its influence in France and England, 

 he is still more significant as a herald of new ideals 

 which he exemplifies as well as preaches, that he is, as 

 he has often been dubbed, the first modern man. One 

 is sometimes tempted to apply that title to Frederick 

 II; but probably it is more justly bestowed on Pe- 

 trarch, for there is certainly some truth in a statement 

 by Geiger, to the effect that Petrarch deserves that 

 name because,to a greater extent than any other imme- 

 diate predecessors of the modern era, he studied himself, 

 and pubUshed to the world at large the results of his 

 observations. 



Let us, then, begin with Petrarch the individual, 

 and afterwards we may study from different angles his 



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