Petrarch

Petrarch ( Francesco Petrarca) (1304–74), Italian poet and humanist, the most popular Italian poet of the English Renaissance. In 1312 he migrated to Avignon, where in 1327 he first saw the woman who inspired his love poetry. He calls her Laura; her true identity is unknown. Until 1353 Petrarch's life was centred in Provence, but he made extended visits to Italy, on the first of which, in 1341, he was crowned poet laureate in Rome. From 1353 onwards he resided in Italy.

Today Petrarch is best known for the collection of Italian lyrics variously known as the Canzoniere or the ‘Rime Sparse’ which includes the long series of poems in praise of Laura; but to his contemporaries and the generations that immediately succeeded him he was best known as a devoted student of classical antiquity, and he wrote the majority of his works in Latin.

Petrarch is justly regarded as the father of Italian humanism and the initiator of the revived study of Greek and Latin literature, but for English writers his chief inspiration was to the early sonneteers (see under sonnet); he was imitated and translated by Surrey, Wyatt, T. Watson, and, later, by Drummond of Hawthornden. Sidney bears witness to his powerful and persuasive influence. Henry Parker, Lord Morley (1476–1556), translated at some point before 1546 his Trionfi as The Tryumphes of Fraunces Petrarcke (?1555; ed. D. D. Carnicelli, 1971), and the countess of Pembroke translated the Trionfo della morte into terza rima.