Excerpt from Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters: A Selection From His Correspondence With Boccaccio and Other Friends, Designed to Illustrate the Beginnings of the Renaissance; Translated From the Original Latin, Together With Historical Introductions and Notes
The purpose of this volume is essentially historical. It is not a piece of literary criticism; it is only incidentally a biography. It has been prepared with the single but lively hope of making a little clearer the development of modern culture. It views Petrarch not as a poet, nor even, primarily, as a many-sided man of genius, but as the mirror of his age - a mirror in which are reflected all the momentous contrasts between waning Medi?valism and the dawning Renaissance.
Petrarch knew almost everyone worth knowing in those days; consequently few historical sources can rival his letters in value and interest; their character and significance are discussed at length in the introduction which follows.
We have ourselves come to love the eager, independent, clear-sighted, sensitive soul through whose eyes we have followed the initial spiritual struggle of modern times; we would that others might learn to love him too.
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