The "father of humanism," founder of the sonnet
An Italian poet and scholar revered as the "father of humanism." He rediscovered the classics of ancient Rome and argued for returning to the ancients to seek human dignity and worth, lighting the first spark of the Renaissance. He wrote hundreds of sonnets for a woman named Laura, honing the form into a precise instrument for the inner life — the "Petrarchan sonnet" then swept all Europe, and even Shakespeare wrote downstream of this river.
Petrarch’s love for Laura was almost entirely unrequited, yet from it came the Canzoniere. No longer singing only of gods and heroes, he traced in detail the sweetness and torment of his own heart — placing the feeling "I," the experiencing subject, at the center of the poem for the first time so gravely, opening the way for modern lyric poetry.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.