About the Author

Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, was born in Arezzo, Italy in 1304. A scholar, poet, diplomat, and early humanist, his rediscovery of the ancient Roman writers did much to fuel the 14th century Renaissance. His use of the sonnet form, particularly in the lyrics dedicated to his ideal love, Laura, was imitated throughout Europe, and became a mark of the civilised literary culture of his own and later periods. Initially trained as a lawyer in the universities of Montpellier and Bologna, his first extensive literary work, an epic in Latin, celebrated the Roman general Scipio Africanus. It was well received and in 1341 he was crowned in Rome as the first poet laureate since antiquity. He is particularly associated with Avignon, where he lived for many years, later travelling widely in Northern Italy, and living for a time in Venice. A friend of Boccaccio, Petrarch died at his home in Arqua, among the Eugenean hills near Padua, in 1374.