Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would be later endorsed as...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth20 July 1304
CityArezzo, Italy
CountryItaly
Hitherto your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal!
Often on earth the gentlest heart is fain To feed and banquet on another's woe.
What name to call thee by, O virgin fair, I know not, for thy looks are not of earth And more than mortal seems thy countenances
How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!
I looked back at the summit of the mountain, which seemed but a cubit high in comparison with the height of human contemplation, were in not too often merged in the corruptions of the earth.
An equal doom clipp'd Time's blest wings of peace.
Alack our life, so beautiful to see, With how much ease life losest, in a day, What many years with pain and toil amassed!
Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.
For style beyond the genius never dares.
For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, and who can rightly die needs no delay.
How quick the old woe follows a little bliss!
My flowery and green age was passing away, and I feeling a chill in the fires had been wasting my heart, for I was drawing near the hillside above the grave.
And I live on, but in grief and self-contempt, Left here without the light I loved so much, In a great tempest and with shrouds unkempt.
Hope is incredible to the slave of grief.