Talk:Petrarch

message: "Petrarch's career in the Church did not allow him to marry,"
What career? Elementalwarrior 16:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: In, the paragraph
"The tomb had been opened previously in 1873 by Professor Giovanni Canestrini, also of Padua University. When the tomb was opened, the skull was discovered in fragments and a DNA test revealed that the skull was not Petrarch's,[2] prompting calls for the return of Petrarch's skull. The researchers are fairly certain that the body in the tomb is Petrarch's due to the fact that the skeleton bears evidence of injuries mentioned by Petrarch in his writings, including a kick from a donkey, when he was forty-two.[3]"
I didn't believe they had DNA testing in 1873?
Anow2 (talk) 01:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrong Date?

message: I see there's significant copying to or from the following article.  I don't know which one is older.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/petrarca.htm
::Here's an archive to see which is older:
::http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/petrarca.htm
::It appears the Wikipedia version is the newer version, from April 2003 User:NuclearWinner
::Stbalbach 05:45, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplication? 

message: "Among other accomplishments, he commissioned the first Latin translation of Homer" - perhaps I misread this, but surely that ignores Livius Andronicus? Novium 23:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Petrarca had Leontinus Pilatus translate the Illiad verbatim in Latin, but he never read it completely. He mentions it's an awful translation. It was the first translation after the dark ages. Livius Andronicus translated the odyssee, however. Reynaert-ad 21:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  homer 

message: In the Philosophy section, "civic humanism" is associated with Leonardo Bruni, which sounds as if it were part of Bruni's philosophy.  However, civic humanism is a 20th century term, created by scholar Hans Baron to describe the thoughts of Bruni (among others).  The concept of civic humanism is also a fairly contested argument.  Should this be changed, or attributed to Baron? Eltonovereasy 22:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bruni reference 

message: The translation by Alexander Foreman, whoever the hell that is, is absolutely abysmal, and quite likely to put quite a lot of people off our dear Petrarch. I'm begging someone to change it. Foreman also put up a butchered Pushkin. Idiot.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.128.70.25 (talk • contribs) .
:::Fine. Happy?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Szfski (talk • contribs) 20:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The translation

message: "Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio and Dante are considered the fathers of the Renaissance. " Claims that someone is "the father of" something, or that a town is "the Venice of the" somewhere are uninformative. When a fully Medieval figure like Dante is added to the batter, the result is puff pastry. --Wetman 19:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: List of people known as father or mother of something. These kinds of idiomatic phrases are good in establishing fast-food context in the lead section  - hopefully a source is included from someone whose opinion matters, and if it is widely repeated and supportable. -- Stbalbach 14:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Names to conjure with

message: I tried to improve the new paragraph about the Epistolae familiares but two points aren't clear (at least to me).
#Does the list of recipients apply to the "sine nomine" letters, or to all the letters?
#In the sentence "From Epistolae familiares he kept a special set of nineteen controversial letters that had much criticism against the Avignon papacy called Sine nomine" what does "he kept" mean? Does it mean that the sine nomine letters are included in the Epistolae familiares (kept in), or excluded from them (kept out)?
Once that's clear, the sentence can be rearranged. At present it says that the papacy is called "sine nomine", but no doubt we want it to say that the letters are called "sine nomine". Andrew Dalby 14:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Epistolae

message: Petrarch is often called a Medieval author and he is often called a Renaissance author. There is no "right" category but he can certainly belong in both. -- Stbalbach 15:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medieval versus Renaissance  

message: "Brought back the poet laureate tradition from antiquity" is an enormous over-simplification. This is what Petrarch thought he was doing; but let us not suggest that he was right. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He was actually crowned with laurel in a ceremony in Rome. He may not have been the first to receive this honor, but he is associated with the laurels because he coined the name "Laura" for his beloved and muse Lore de Sade (whom he never spoke to in person) and in his poems alluded to the fame (i.e., laurels) that his poetry was going to bring him through the inspiration of his love for her. Note that the illustration on this page shows him wearing his laurel crown.Mballen (talk) 05:55, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Poet laureate

message: What does this mean? One of the most popular art forms up to Petrarch's time? Up to ours? Llajwa 02:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The sonnet has never really faded. It has evolved in time (see Bembo, Marino, the Pre-Raphaelites, Ezra Pound) and space (Marot, Du Bellay in France, Wyatt, the Earl of Surrey and Shakepeare in England. I agree we might use examples and be more specific on that, but that means we should write a long section on Petrarch's metre alone?--Wiz shoot the bull  14:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Yes, it's rubbish. I'll chop it. --Folantin (talk) 09:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: He invented the sonnet sequence, addressed to one beloved, which was copied by Shakespeare and many others.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mballen (talk • contribs) 05:58, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "...perfecting the sonnet, making it one of the most popular art forms to date"

message: Just doing a little research on 'The Dark Ages' and was using Wikipedia for ideas on keyword ideas to help me along in my research.  I've noticed that the source that points to Petrarch effectively coining the phrase 'Dark Ages' didn't actually really say much about him being the first to mention 'The Dark Ages'.  May I recommend a better source from the same database (JSTOR)?
Title: Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'
Author: Theodore E. Mommsen
Link: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-7134%28194204%2917%3A2%3C226%3APCOT%27A%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N
It seems to do a better job at describing his roll in the label 'Dark Ages' from what I can tell, not to mention it also describes where the term could have been derived from in a religious perspective (better background info).  Hope this helps. :)
Edit: And I'm referring to source 9 in the article, just for clarification.
--Trikster85 (talk) 06:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added it in, as no one else seemed about to. Thank you for the tip. --Wetman (talk) 07:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad Source? 

message: The link to "Letter to Posterity" redirects back to this same article. Please fix or remove the link. 71.224.120.218 (talk) 21:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant redirect 

message: In the article, I read
J.H. Plumb writes in his book The Italian Renaissance of Morris Bishop's version of Petrarch's Ascent of Mont Ventoux showing Petrarch's climb in 1336 was epoch making. [11] This was because Petrarch did this climb on his own volition and not because anything was forced upon him. Petrarch's letter of the ascent to his confessor,[12] the monk Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, rings of aesthetic gratification to grandeur and majesty, [13] a modern attitude that is quoted to this day in many books and journals pertaining to mountaineering.[14]
I doubt very much that mountaineering is what makes Petrarch's ascent "epoch making".  James Hillman in Re-Visioning Psychology argues that it was actually the descent from Mont Ventoux -- the return to the valley -- that initiated the Renaissance.  The descent, after the encounter with Augustine, was a turning away from spirit and a turning towards soul, a turning from transcendence to immanence.  See   Ascent_of_Mont_Ventoux#Modern_reception.  It was not aspiration that led to the Renaissance: It was an ability to accept and explore the darker side of human nature, the pathos, the shortcomings.  Putting Hillman's analysis in simple terms, the Renaissance was about the valley, not about the mountain.  Source: 
-- NonZionist (talk) 03:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaissance was NOT about mountain climbing 

message: I recently uploaded a number of engravings by Hollar that claim to depict Petrarch's Laura, which may have been either from life of Laura de Noves, or from imagination. In any case I thought it might be useful here or elsewhere, if it's applicable. Would also appreciate help categorizing it on Commons. Thanks! Dcoetzee 19:30, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images question 

message: "Petrarch is credited with developing the sonnet to a level of perfection that would be unsurpassed to this day and spreading its use to other European languages." - from the lead.
I have trouble working out what this means, it could mean 1) He developed a form of sonnet which has a level of perfection and is unsurpassed to this day. 2) He wrote sonnets in the form he developed which are perfect and unsurpassed etc. In either case what does it mean to have developed a poetic form to perfection, who said it was perfect? how could it be surpassed, what does it mean to have surpassed perfection? In short, this sentence, apart from the bit about spreading the form to other languages, means almost nothing. In addition to which there is no citation so we can't even tell if it is a reliable person's aesthetic judgement. Grcaldwell (talk) 16:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That jumped out at me as well.  The line should change.  Someone who has more background might want to include something like "...his sonnets have received high praise from critics through many centuries and imitated by many including..." or something similar and include citations. (John User:Jwy talk) 00:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would be interested to know just how many levels perfection has. It would allow the perfect to know how far they have to go to get perfect. Venqax (talk) 20:20, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Weasle and POV

message: Removed the following dead link (here so it can be readded if the site comes back to life) - The Petrarchan Grotto
Grcaldwell (talk) 21:52, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Dead link

message: Can someone please rewrite/better this sentence? "Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for the modern Italian language, later endorsed by the Accademia della Crusca." I've read it several times and can't make it out! Thanks, --Ebrownless (talk) 07:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Strange Sentence

message: I've only recently started taking an interest with this article, and I noticed how often it has been vandalised in the past few weeks. While I haven't checked the whole history, I'd like to know: has it always been like that? If so, then maybe this article would need some kind of permanent semi-protection, meaning only members registered for at least 4 days could make modifications. Thanks for updating me on the matter.• H☼ωdΘesI†fl∉∈ {KLAT} • 01:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Nah, I don't think it has been vandalised any more than normal over the past few weeks. This is a popular article (it got almost 45,000 hits in September ) so you have to expect a bit of trouble. Fortunately quite a few users have this page on their watchlists too  so any vandalism quickly gets zapped. IMO there isn't a big enough problem at the moment to need semi-protection. --Folantin (talk) 09:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, if you say so. Thanks for responding!• H☼ωdΘesI†fl∉∈ {KLAT} • 22:12, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism much? 

message: Petrarch doesn't say that he was the first to ascend the mountain since Philip of Macedonia.  He says that he was inspired to climb it after reading about Philip's ascent of Mount Hemo in Thessaly.  The "aged peasant", aside from warning him of the dangers (minor really), tells Petrarch that no one has ascended the mountain since he himself did so in his youth 50 years before.  (I don't have time to make the changes right now, but if they don't get made I'll do them later.) E. abu Filumena (talk) 20:24, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Mount Ventoux

message: Apparently there are references to Petrarch's De Viris Illustribus, other than his Secretum that are in his works of Rhymes, De otio religiosorum, and Triumphs. Does anybody have an idea where these may be? Apparently these references were over a forty year period of these Petrarch writings.--Doug Coldwell talk 20:08, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[De Viris Illustribus (Petrarch)]] 

message: It seems so obvious, but why isn't there a quick link to the Petrarchan sonnet? It's a significant innovation. I'm no Petrarch scholar, but I would argue that it belongs in the intro or at the very least in the section about his writing.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meditations in an Emergency (talk • contribs) 14:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: A link can easily be found in the "Petrarch" navigation template at the very end; another, in the "Dante" section. I don't think it necessary to add more mentions in the main article, given its actual shape, but if you strongly feel about the matter, then go ahead: nobody's gonna stop you! Cheers.• H☼ωdΘesI†fl∉∈ {TALK} • 17:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Petrarchan sonnet 

message: Was Petrarch adopted? I do not understand German, but the following citation implies he was adopted.
SCHOTT, Clausdieter (1936-  ). Die „Adoption“ bei Petrarca und in der Petrarca-Rezeption. in> Festschrift für Hans-Wolfgang Strätz zum 70. Geburtstag / hrsg. von Harald Derschka [ISBN: 978-3866464001], S. 445-58.
I have several URLs upon which the citation was formed---on behalf of the Adoption Bibliography Center.
71.190.64.13 (talk) 10:31, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adoption 

message: After several years of regular and conscientious contribution to Wikipedia, I retired ten months ago, exhausted and completely burned out. I come back occasionally (entirely by habit) looking for information; and very occasionally I make a random anonymous edit, mainly to remind myself that I have the right to do it (like everybody else on earth) and to flout the specious argument that if I'm really retired I must un-retire before I can edit again. Phooey.
The other day I came across something (in the real world, not here) that mentioned Petrarch, so I came here to read about him. What I found instead was a powerful reminder of why I retired from this madhouse and why Wikipedia will NEVER be the serious source of reliable information it aspires to become.
I hadn't read more than two paragraphs about Petrarch when I came to a screeching halt, a halt that is now permanent. Whatever I learn about him I will not learn here.
What leapt up in my face like an angry cobra was the fact that—except for its title—the article about Petrarch never called him Petrarch, choosing instead to call him Petrarca. It was so peculiar that I came here to find out why, and now I know why.
One or two editors whose native language is not English have decided to use this article as a weapon against the English language and what they perceive as its arrogant disrespect for the conventions of other languages—insisting in many cases on using words, names, etc, in strange and idiosyncratic ways, with no regard to how the same kinds of words are used in French, Dutch, German, Italian, Arabic or any other language. Petrarch is called Petrarca in other languages, so English must be FORCED to do the same.
I trust that those editors eventually will discover that taking on a 1500-year-old language, with around half a billion native speakers, and trying to force it to change the way it has developed throughout those long centuries, is a lost cause. A million-strong army backed by every country in the United Nations wouldn't succeed in such an insane quest; one or two petulant European academics with nothing more meaningful in their lives can't do it either. English is as it is—love it (as I do) or hate it (as they do), but the "consensus" of a tiny gang of angry WP editors is not going to change it.
All those editors CAN do is:
# seriously mislead people who know English even less well than those editors know it—but who, unlike those editors, are trying to learn it—into believing that Petrarch actually IS called Petrarca in English, and discovering the truth only after they have failed an exam in an English course because they misspelled the subject's name;
# turn away native English speakers, like me, who might come here to learn about Petrarch but be put off by an article that is so ignorant it can't even get his name right; and
# make themselves look very petty and very silly.
 
The first two of those results are the ones that prove this "encyclopedia" can never be what it wants to be (the third result is meaningful only to the individual editors).
Any source of information that by its very nature is vulnerable to such publishing of inaccurate information, by a "consensus" of a very small number of narrow-minded, iron-willed, recalcitrant editors, will NEVER earn the universal trust a true encyclopedia must have. When enough Wikipedia users have been burned by articles like this one, which give out false information because a few editors are using the articles for their own neurotic purposes, they will stop coming here for information.
If this were the ONLY such article in Wikipedia, it could be written off as a passing spasm, a necessary growth pang, but it's not. It's endemic.
Wikipedia is full of articles like this, disseminating not reliable facts but petty personal agendas; and its fundamental structure guarantees that such unreliable articles will persist for as long as this ambitious but failing experiment lasts. 
Before long, Wikipedia will become only a place for fans to read about their idols and squabble with fans of other idols over what the articles say. Seekers of serious, reliable, objective and unbiased information—like me—will find it somewhere else online; and eventually some OTHER movement will arise, take up the cause Wikipedia has failed in and give us what WP has failed to give us: a true online encyclopedia.
74.65.25.24 (talk) 03:28, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You are absolutely right.  There is no justification for using a foreign version of the name in an English article when the person is (almost, of course) universally known in English as Petrarch.  The article simply looks ridiculous. It should be corrected ASAP. Zaslav (talk) 02:25, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Worse:  The global edit of "Petrarch" to "Petrarca" resulted in some false titles of references.  I checked several references written in English and found every one to have "Petrarch", not "Petrarca".  That's plenty of evidence that the right name in English is Petrarch.  Zaslav (talk) 03:02, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is why I retired from Wikipedia 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: My proposal of adding Saariaho's Dolce tormento to musical settings had been axed for not being notable enough, but I have restored it with more evidence as sources. The work has an article on Dutch Wikipedia and is often performed, it deserves to be included in such a history of musical settings of Petrarch from his lifetime to ours. But maybe this section would benefit from being organized differently in order to allow for more examples while being readable? Musiktheaterpedia (talk) 15:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Musical settings