Club of Petrarca

Laura - Torna

2009-07-26T20:20:00.002+02:00

oltre le nuvole sono altamente
il sole colori sono dritto distribuite
cadere in silenzio - in morbido velluto
si guarda al passato...
le sue parole e le azioni;

tuttavia, non sembra campana al suono
fissi in piedi per azzerare i campi
l'orizzonte - vede in lontananza
cespuglio di fuoco... elenco nella
blu e seppia;

e poi arriva Rose.

Dage Yven

A. D. 2009 July 19-20.

Petrarca - Torna

2009-07-26T20:07:00.002+02:00

quando Francesco acceso
ad ovest sole;
apparve davanti a lui la strada
come le sette corde della luce

come il fascio luminoso
spighe di grano;
e questo fu l'inizio
come iniziare...

bianco e rosa nuvole
preceduto la mattina
attraverso il silenzio
parla per l'arrivo alba;

attende con Francesco
e nel secondo ha visto
lo splendore delle montagne
rocciose...

la dove era venuta.

Dage Yven

A. D. 2009 July 19-20.

Sento l' aura mia antica...

2009-07-03T15:16:00.008+02:00

Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often popularly called the "Father of Humanism".^[1] Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of Dante Alighieri Giovanni Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for the modern Italian language, later endorsed by the Accademia della Crusca. His sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. Petrarch was also known for being one of the first people to call the Middle Ages the Dark Ages.

Petrarch says he was born on Garden Street in the city of Arezzo, just at dawn on a Monday. He was the son of Ser Petracco. He spent his early childhood in the village of Incisa, near Florence. Petrarch spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby Carpentras, where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V who moved there in 1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy. He studied law at Montpellier (1316–20) and Bologna (1320–23) with a lifelong friend and schoolmate called Guido Sette. Because his father was in the profession of law he insisted that Petrarch and his brother study law also. Petrarch however was primarily interested in writing and Latin literature and considered these seven years wasted. Additionally he proclaimed that through legal manipulation his guardians robbed him of his small property inheritance in Florence, which only reinforced his dislike for the legal system. He protested, "I couldn't face making a merchandise of my mind", as he viewed the legal system as the art of selling justice. ^[2]

Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio among his notable friends to whom he wrote often. After the death of their parents, Petrarch and his brother Gherardo went back to Avignon in 1326, where he worked in numerous clerical offices. This work gave him much time to devote to his writing. With his first large scale work, Africa, an epic in Latin about the great Roman general Scipio Africanus, Petrarch emerged as a European celebrity. On April 8, 1341, he became the first poet laureate since antiquity and was crowned on the holy grounds of Rome's Capitol.^[3]

He traveled widely in Europe and served as an ambassador and has been called "the first tourist" ^[4] because he traveled just for pleasure,^[5] which was the basic reason he climbed Mont Ventoux.^[6]Leontius Pilatus's translation of Homer from a manuscript purchased by Boccaccio, although he was severely critical of the result. Petrarch had acquired a copy, which he did not entrust to Leontius, ^[7] but he knew no Greek; Homer, Petrarch said, "was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer".^[8] In 1345 he personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters not previously known to have existed, the collection ad Atticum. During his travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and was a prime mover in the recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece. He encouraged and advised

Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the centuries preceding the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited with creating the concept of a historical "Dark Ages".^[9]

^ There are many popular examples, for a recent one this reviewof Carol Quillen's Rereading the Renaissance
^ J.H. Plumb, The Italian Renaissance, 1961; Chapter XI by Morris Bishop "Petrarch", pp. 161-162; New York, publisher American Heritage ISBN 0-618-12738-0
^ Plumb, p. 164
^ NSA Family Encyclopedia, Petrarch, Francesco, Volume 11, page 240, Standard Education Corp. 1992
^ Bishop, Morris Petrarch and his World, p. 92; Indiana University Press 1963, ISBN 0804617309
^ ^a ^b Plumb, p. 163
^ Vittore Branca, Boccaccio; The Man and His Works, tr. Richard Monges, p.113-118
^ tuttotempolibero.altervista.org//poesia/trecento/francescopetrarca/epistolefamiliares.html Ep. Fam. 18.2 §9
^ Renaissance or Prenaissance

, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jan., 1943), pp. 69-74; Theodore E. Mommsen, "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages" Speculum 17.2 (April 1942:226-242); JSTOR link to a collection of several letters in the same issue

Laura de Noves - Muse of Francesco Petrarca

2009-06-16T16:01:00.002+02:00

Laura de Noves (1310 - 1348) was the wife of Count Hugues de Sade (possibly the ancestor of the Marquis de Sade). She could be the Laura that the Humanist poet Francesco Petrarch wrote about extensively; however she has never been positively identified as such.^[1] Laura had a great influence on Petrarch's life and lyrics. The historical information on Laura is meager at best.

Born 6 years after Petrarch in 1310 in Avignon she was the daughter of a Knight, Audibert de Noves. She married at the age of 15 (16 January 1325) and Petrarch saw her for the first time two years later on 6 April (Good Friday) in 1327 at Easter mass in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon.

Not much is known about her other than she did have a large family, was a virtuous wife, and died in 1348. Since this first encounter with Laura, Petrarch spent the next three years in Avignon Platonic love and haunting Laura in church and on her walks. After this Petrarch left Avignon and went to Lombez (a French department of Gers) where he held a canonry gifted by Pope Benedict XII. singing his purely

In 1337 he returned to Avignon and bought a small estate at Vaucluse to be near his dear Laura. Here for the next three years he wrote numerous sonnets in her praise.^[2] Petrarch's Canzonieresonnet that is called Petrarchan sonnet. Years after her death Petrarch wrote his Trionfi, which is a religious allegory in which Laura is idealized.^[3] (Songbook) is the lyrics to her in the troubadour tradition of courtly love. They advanced the growth of Italian as a literary language. They also popularized this form of

[edit] External

Francesco Petrarch and Laura de Noves

[edit] References

^ New Standard Encyclopedia, 1992 by Standard Educational Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; page P-240
^ American International Encyclopedia, publisher J.J. Little, New York 1954; reference article - 'Petrarch'
^ New Standard Encyclopedia, 1992 by Standard Educational Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; page P-241