“I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things, when even the pagan philosophers had long taught that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself.”
About Francesco Petrarca
1304–19 July 1374
Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, was born on 20 July 1304 in Arezzo, Tuscany, and died during the night of 18–19 July 1374 at Arquà, near Padua. He stands among the decisive makers of European literary culture: a poet whose Italian lyrics established an enduring language of desire; a Latin author who…