Discuss the significance of Petrarch as the "father of humanism."

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Francesco Petrarch, one of the most famous of the early Florentine humanists, devoted his life to the recovery, copying, and editing of Latin manuscripts. The study and interpretation of ancient Greek and Roman texts, preserved for centuries by Christian and Muslim scholars, was a fundamental feature of Classical humanism. Petrarch was a tireless popularizer of Classical studies, writing hundreds of letters describing his admiration for antiquity and his enthusiasm for the Classics. In a letter addressed to his friend Lapo da Castiglionchio, Petrarch laments the scarcity and incompetence of copyists, bemoans the fact that books that are difficult to understand have "sunk into utter neglect," and defends his ambition to preserve them, despite the inordinate amount of time it takes to copy them. A Christian of his time, Petrarch carried an unresolved dissonance between the dual imperatives of his heritage: the Judeo-Christian will to believe and the Classical will to reason.
Petrarch's life had a profound influence for all Classical humanists and, subsequently, modern society. He established the standards for the study of the Latin classics, and, by insisting on the union of ethics and eloquence, he pioneered the modern ideal of the educated individual.