The Italian scholar and poet Petrarch is credited with being the pursuit's first and most famous aficionado.

In 1359 following a meeting with Pope Innocent VI and further meetings with Petrarch it is probable that Boccaccio took some kind of religious mantle.

The relationship between the two forms is most obvious in the composers who concentrated on sacred music, especially Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose " motets " setting texts from the Canticum Canticorum, the biblical " Song of Solomon ," are among the most lush and madrigal-like of Palestrina's compositions, while his " madrigals " that set poems of Petrarch in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary would not be out of place in church.

By the 14th century, the form further crystallized under the pen of Petrarch, whose sonnets were later translated in the 16th century by Sir Thomas Wyatt, who is credited with introducing the sonnet form into English literature.

The conception of a " rebirth " of Classical Latin learning is first credited to an Italian poet Petrarch, the father of Humanism, a term that was not coined until the 19th century, but the conception of a rebirth has been in common use since Petrarch's time.

Petrarch is often called the " Father of Humanism ".

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 ".

Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, notably the Canzoniere (" Songbook ") and the Trionfi (" Triumphs ").

While it is possible she was an idealized or pseudonymous character – particularly since the name " Laura " has a linguistic connection to the poetic " laurels " Petrarch coveted – Petrarch himself always denied it.

There is psychological realism in the description of Laura, although Petrarch draws heavily on conventionalised descriptions of love and lovers from troubadour songs and other literature of courtly love.

Turin, Einaudi, 1964 ) has spoken of linguistic indeterminacy – Petrarch never rises above the " bel pié " ( her lovely foot ): Laura is too holy to be painted ; she is an awe-inspiring goddess.

Statue of Petrarch on the Uffizi Palace, in FlorencePetrarch is traditionally called the father of Humanism and considered by many to be the " father of the Renaissance.

The researchers are fairly certain that the body in the tomb is Petrarch's due to the fact that the skeleton bears evidence of injuries mentioned by Petrarch in his writings, including a kick from a donkey when he was 42.

Petrarch later retold the story in Latin, which is probably the biggest factor that contributed to its huge popularity in subsequent centuries.

* Petrarch is crowned poet laureate in Rome, the first man since antiquity to be given this honor.

Petrarch, who wrote in a letter that he was often approached by vinediggers with old coins asking him to buy or to identify the ruler, is credited as the first Renaissance collector.

It is possible to outline a story from this series of love lyrics, but the incidents are slight, and in this case, as in other Elizabethan sonnet-cycles, it is difficult to dogmatize as to what is the expression of a real personal experience, and what is intellectual exercise in imitation of Petrarch.

Among his works in Italian and Neapolitan are the recasting of Neapolitan proverbs as Gliommeri his Farse, and the Rime ( published as Sonetti et canzoni di M. Jacopo Sannazaro, Naples and Rome, 1530 ), where the manner of Petrarch is paramount.

" Petrarch asked to be examined by Robert before being crowned as poet in the Campidoglio in Rome ( 1341 ); his Latin epic Africa is dedicated to Robert, though it was not made available to readers until 1397, long after both Petrarch and Robert were dead.

He did not undertake further missions for Florence until 1365, and traveled to Naples and then on to Padua and Venice, where he met up with Petrarch in grand style at Palazzo Molina, Petrarch's residence as well as the place of Petrarch's library.

Boccaccio's change in writing style in the 1350s was not due just to meeting with Petrarch.

* Chaucer coming in contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio

Petrarch recounts that on April 26, 1336, with his brother and two servants, he climbed to the top of Mont Ventoux (), a feat which he undertook for recreation rather than necessity.

Francesca and her family lived with Petrarch in Venice for five years from 1362 to 1367 at Palazzo Molina ; although Petrarch continued to travel in those years.

About 1368 Petrarch and his daughter Francesca ( with her family ) moved to the small town of Arquà in the Euganean Hills near Padua, where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation.

Later in his " Letter to Posterity ", Petrarch wrote: " In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair – my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames.

For example, Petrarch struggled with the proper relation between the active and contemplative life, and tended to emphasize the importance of solitude and study.

As a cultural movement, it encompassed innovative flowering of Latin and vernacular literatures, beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on classical sources, which contemporaries credited to Petrarch, the development of linear perspective and other techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform.

* The poet Petrarch coins the term Dark Ages to describe the preceding 900 years in Europe, beginning with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 through to the renewal embodied in the Renaissance.

Having virtually abandoned all the Imperial rights in Italy, the emperor re-crossed the Alps, pursued by the scornful words of Petrarch, but laden with considerable wealth.

He corresponded with Petrarch and invited this to visit his residence in Prague, whilst the Italian hoped — to no avail — to see Charles move his residence to Rome and reawaken tradition of the Roman Empire.

Despite the split, Naples grew in importance, attracting Pisan and Genoese merchants, Tuscan bankers, and with them some of the most championed Renaissance artists of the time, such as Boccaccio, Petrarch and Giotto.

The foundation of Bruni's conception can be found with Petrarch, who distinguished the classical period from later cultural decline, or tenebrae ( literally " darkness ").

Petrarch popularized the sonnet as a poetic form ; Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron made romance acceptable in prose as well as poetry ; François Rabelais rejuvenates satire with Gargantua and Pantagruel ; Michel de Montaigne single-handedly invented the essay and used it to catalog his life and ideas.

Petrarch, for example, devoted much time to his Africa, a dactylic hexameter epic on Scipio Africanus, but this work was unappreciated in his time and remains little read today.

Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.

Here, poetry alone provides a consolation for personal grief, much less philosophy or politics ( as in Dante ), for Petrarch fights within himself ( sensuality versus mysticism, profane versus Christian literature ), not against anything outside of himself.

When sent for, Morrone obstinately refused to accept the papacy, and even, as Petrarch says, tried to flee, until he was finally persuaded by a deputation of cardinals accompanied by the kings of Naples and Hungary.

Continued troubles in Italy, as well as pleas from figures such as Petrarch and St. Bridget of Sweden, caused Urban to set out for Rome, which he reached on 16 October 1367.

* April 26 – Ascent of Mount Ventoux by the Italian poet Petrarch: he claims to be the first since classical antiquity to climb a mountain for the view.

Of particular note, Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace – her magnum opus, as well as completing translations of Rilke, Mann, Chekov, Veraline, Akmatova, Shakespeare, and Petrarch, among others, plus many other works including reference books and works for children.

He was unable to write poetry for months because of his anguish over his wife's death, but eventually he composed, inspired by Petrarch, the sonnet Op de dood van Sterre ( On the death of Sterre ), which was well received.

The Italian poet Petrarch addressed one of his letters to the dead to Quintilian, and for many he “ provided the inspiration for a new humanistic philosophy of education ” ( 140 ).

This work was of decisive importance in the development of the Italian madrigal, the most famous secular musical form of the 16th century, as it was these poems, carefully constructed ( or, in the case of Petrarch, analyzed ) according to Bembo's ideas, that were to be the primary texts for the music.

His choice of poetry varied widely, from Petrarch for his more serious work to the lightest verse for some of his amusing canzonettas.

For example, his fourth book of madrigals for five voices begins with a complete sestina by Petrarch, continues with two-part sonnets, and concludes with another sestina: therefore the entire book can be heard as a unified composition with each madrigal a subsidiary part.

She also invited the writer Petrarch to reside at her court as a means of maintaining the high level of culture for which the Angevin rulers in Naples were responsible for establishing.

Francis Petrarch became a friend of Simone's while in Avignon, and two of Petrarch's sonnets ( Canzoniere 96 and 130 ) make reference to a portrait of Laura de Noves that Simone supposedly painted for the poet ( according to Vasari ).