Page "Petrarch" Paragraph 8

He traveled widely in Europe and served as an ambassador and has been called " the first tourist " because he traveled just for pleasure, which was the basic reason he climbed Mont Ventoux.

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 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, but he knew no Greek ; Homer, Petrarch said, " was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer ".

In 1345 he personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters not previously known to have existed, the collection ad Atticum.