Francesco Petrarch's Life

Francesco was born on July 20, 1304 in Arezzo, in exile. His family was exiled by the same people who exiled Dante not too long before they were exiled. In 1320 Francesco began to study law in Bologna. His father wanted him to be in law, but Francesco despised lawyers because he didn't like the fact that they were dishonest, although the logic of law appealed to him. When his father died, in 1326, Francesco stops studying law and turned to classics, which he had studied very little of during his schooling. He entered the service of the church along with his brother, with all of their family's money gone, the church supported them for the rest of his life.

English: Portrait of Laura, celebrated in his poet...

Epistolae familiares and Seniles

Laura e Petrarca, miniatura dal Canzoniere

On April 6, 1327, Francesco met Laura for the first time. Laura would come to be one of his biggest influences in writing. Nobody knows if Laura really existed, but she's expected to be Laura de Noves. Francesco fell madly in love with her, even though he most likely never even talked to her. He ended up writing 366 poems about Laura, 263 while she was alive and 103 after she died. After her death, Francesco said that she died on the same hour of the same day he met her, only 21 years later.

In 1340 Francesco received two invitations, both of them asking him to accept the crown as poet laureate; one was from Rome and one was from Paris. He accepted the invitation from Rome and he was crowned by a roman noble. Francesco's speech called on a rebirth of classical wisdom and poetry, and he believed that the poet laureate was the symbol for poetic and literary immortality.

Francesco began to examine his faith, after his brother became a monk, and he wrote Secretum. It...