The Petrarchan sonnet is called by that name because:
The Petrarchan sonnet was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets. Because of the structure of Italian, the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sonnet is more easily fulfilled in that language than in English.he sonnet is split in two groups: the octave (of 8 lines) and the sestet (of 6 lines), for a total of 14 lines. The octave (the first 8 lines) typically introduces the theme or problem using a rhyme scheme of abba abba.