| Article Index |
|---|
| Francesco Petrarca |
| The travels |
| Last period of his life |
| All Pages |
Francesco Petrarca was born in Arezzo in 1304. In 1311, he moved with his family to France, in Avignon, where the Papacy was located at that time. His father, expelled from Florence, hoped to find there an accommodation. The family settled in Carpentras and the young Francesco started to study grammar and rhetoric. Trying to obey to his father’s will, he then moved to Montpellier and began the studies of Law. For this reason, he came back to Italy in 1320 and he went to Bologna with his brother Gherardo.
In 1326, he definitely gave up with the Law career and he returned to Avignon, where he took the minor orders and entered the Court. It is on the 6th of April of the same year that in Santa Chiara Church, he saw Laura for the first time. This noble woman, loved by Petrarca for the rest of his life, had been the poet’s inspiration to compose Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, known as Il Canzoniere, the symbol of his spiritual life.
