Francesco Petrarch

Renaissance Humanist · Europe · 1304 to 1374

Italian poet and scholar often called the father of humanism. He revived classical writing and joined study of it with Christian belief.

What it is

Francesco Petrarch (1304 to 1374) was an Italian scholar, poet and humanist, often called the father of humanism. He turned to the writers of ancient Rome for guidance on how to live, and he held that this study fitted with Christian faith.

He was born in Arezzo in Tuscany and died in July 1374 at Arquà, near Padua. His father worked in the law and insisted that he study it, which he did at Montpellier and Bologna. In 1326 he returned to Avignon, where he took minor church posts.

The main ideas

Learning from the ancients. He travelled widely and searched libraries for lost classical manuscripts. He believed that the study of ancient writers has great moral and practical value, because it teaches what people have thought and done.
Classical learning and Christian faith together. He admired the ancient writers and saw their work as continuous with Christian values. He did not see a conflict between making the most of human abilities and having religious faith.
Secular life and God. In a book called Secretum meum, a partly autobiographical work, he wrote about finding God in the midst of secular life, and the book makes the point that worldly achievement does not rule out a real relationship with God.
Solitude and study. He looked for quiet places to read and write, and he found a retreat at Vaucluse near Avignon.
Founding a movement. He is credited with founding Renaissance humanism, the movement that turned back to the classical authors.

What it looks like in practice

Picture someone who feels pulled between a busy life in the world and a wish for quiet and study. Petrarch would not tell them to give up one for the other. He would suggest that they read the old writers on how to live well, spend part of their time alone with a book, and keep their faith while doing so. This is an illustration of the outlook, not a passage from his writing.

Books and moments

Laura. On 6 April 1327 he first saw a woman called Laura in a church in Avignon. His love for her, which lasted nearly all his life, is the source of his Italian poems.
The Canzoniere. The poems, called the Rime or the Canzoniere, are a collection of lyric poems. They contributed to the Renaissance flowering of lyric poetry.
Secretum meum is the partly autobiographical book about finding God in the midst of secular life.
Africa and De viris illustribus. He also wrote an epic poem, Africa, and a work of lives of famous men, De viris illustribus.
The search for manuscripts. He is credited with recovering writings of the Roman author Cicero. The sources differ on what exactly he found: one names two speeches, the other a collection of letters.

Questions and criticism

Who was Laura? Efforts to name her are uncertain. It is fair to ask how much of Laura is a real woman and how much is the figure of the poems.
Father of humanism? Calling one man the founder of a movement simplifies things. It is fair to ask how much of humanism was his own and how much came from those who followed.
Does the fusion hold? He tied the ancient writers to Christian faith, but those writers lived before it. Whether the two can be joined without strain is a fair question.

Close neighbours

Cicero and Augustine of Hippo, writers he read and admired, have pages on this site.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Philosophies they belong to or are close to

Secular humanism

Who they connect to

Influenced

Desiderius Erasmus · Both urged a return to the writers of antiquity as guides to a good life. (scholars disagree about this link)
Pico della Mirandola · He belonged to the humanist current that Petrarch began, with its stress on human dignity. (scholars disagree about this link)

Other Renaissance Humanist thinkers

Nicholas of Cusa · 1401 to 1464
Pico della Mirandola · 1463 to 1494
Desiderius Erasmus · 1466 to 1536
Niccolo Machiavelli · 1469 to 1527
Thomas More · 1478 to 1535
Michel de Montaigne · 1533 to 1592
Giordano Bruno · 1548 to 1600

Sources we used

Petrarch · Encyclopaedia Britannica, read on 29 October 2026
Petrarch · Wikipedia, read on 29 October 2026