Francesco Petrarca — a remark

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“What good is it to teach others if you do not first listen to yourself?”

Original: A che ti giova insegnare agli altri, se intanto tu per primo non ascolti te stesso? — A rebuke of the admired Cicero that turns moral authority inward. · Letter to Cicero, Familiares XXIV, 3 (commonly given in Italian from the Latin original)

Francesco Petrarca

About Francesco Petrarca

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…

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“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.”

Original: Clausi librum iratus mihi quod terrestria adhuc mirarer, qui vel a philosophis ethnicis didicissem pridem nihil praeter animum esse mirabile, cui magno nihil magnum est extra se. — After opening Augustine on the summit, he turns from landscape to conscience. · Letter on the ascent of Mont Ventoux, Familiares IV, 1 (Latin)

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