THE SECOND MOST BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE IN ITALY
BY KILIMANGIARO 2017, RAI 3
Time seems to have stood still at Arquà Petrarca, the centre of the Euganean hills that, more than any other, has maintained the old charm of the medieval hamlet. Its name probably comes from Arquata montium, meaning “ring of mountains”, but it owes its renown to the eternal fame of Francesco Petrarca, the poet who spent the last years of his life there.
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HISTORY
Arquà Petrarca has very ancient origins and there are archaeological finds that date back to the Bronze Age. Pile dwellings, huts, crockery made of baked clay, animals’ bones and flint tools are the proof of human settlements around the small Costa Lake. A necropolis has been found in the slopes of Monte Ricco, with several tools and weapons belonging to the Euganean native tribes that lived in the area before the Roman colonization. All these finds can be seen at the Archaeological Atestino National Museum in Este, only 7 km away from Arquà.
Recently, the Unesco has accepted a proposal to include the Costa lake in the Unesco’s World Heritage Sites.
BIOGRAPHY
FRANCESCO PETRARCH
Petrarch was born in Arezzo, Tuscany, in 1304. In 1311 his family moved to Avignon (France), where the papacy was located at that time. His father, expelled from Florence for political reasons, hoped to find there a new home for his family. They settled in Carpentras and the young Francesco began to study grammar and rhetoric. He was very interested in writing and Latin literature. Trying to obey to his father’s will , he moved to Montpellier and Bologna to study law with his brother Gherardo. After the death of his parents, Petrarch gave up on his studies and he went back to Avignon in 1326. In this city he worked for many clerical offices and these jobs allowed him spare time to devote to his writing.
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