Petrarch's sonnet

Francesco Petrarch's writings paved the way for other "humanist" authors and philosophers.  As explained by Jonathan Zophy, Petrarch was a celebrated writer that "recognized and restored to light the ancient elegance of style which was lost and dead by recovering the works of Cicero"(73).  This image is a product of one of Petrarch's "anti-Babylon" sonnets provided by yale.edu. According to this site, this particular image was published on this paper in 1476 in Florence.  Though this is not directly written onto this paper by Petrarch, it is still relevant for study because of its popularity among citizens even after his death over one hundred years before in 1374. Because Petrarch made such a profound impact on humanistic studies, his work has stood the test of time and continues to provide a foundation for humanistic research.

As we can see by looking at this document, it is most likely written in either Latin or Greek, because this seemed to be Petrarch's signature when composing a written work.  The document is hand written and contains two separated columns of writing.  The paper in which it is written on may well have been from the hide of sheep as we had discussed in class (the link did not say).  However, by the looks of it, the author or scribe would have probably spent much time tediously copying the work of Petrarch onto this document. It is a very interesting piece, and can show us how ancient writings can withstand years of life.