As the Black Death ravaged Avignon, France, and northern Italy, wiping out over half the population, the great humanist scholar and poet Petrarch lost his beloved muse Laura and almost all of his close friends to the bubonic plague. Petrarch himself moved constantly between infected cities, carrying a massive collection of rare, ancient classical manuscripts. Despite being constantly surrounded by corpses and flea-ridden rats, Petrarch miraculously escaped infection, preserving his precious library intact.

Petrarch's survival directly ignited the Renaissance humanist movement. His ability to preserve and translate classical texts, combined with his deeply influential sonnets mourning Laura, created the 'Petrarchan Sonnet' form, which became the structural standard for love poetry across Europe for generations.