Italian Renaissance 2

Italian Renaissance

You will learn about some Italian writers!

Franchesco Petrarca

He was born at dawn on July 20, 1304, in the city of Arezzo, in central Italy, just south of Florence. 

Multiple Choice

He is famous for writing poems.

• True

• False

Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, notably the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, a collection of 366 lyric poems in various genres also known as 'canzoniere', and the Triumphi, a six-part narrative poem of Dantean inspiration. However, Petrarch was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and did most of his writing in this language. His Latin writings include scholarly works, introspective essays, letters, and more poetry.

Multiple Choice

He didn't influence European literature.

• True

• False

Petrarch's considerable influence in England, and therefore in English, began with Chaucer, who incorporated elements and translations of Petrarch's work into his own. Petrarch's influence in English lasted at least through the 19th century and can be found in the work of many famous English poets, such as Sir Thomas Wyatt and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Niccolo Machiavelli

(born May 3, 1469, Florence, Italy—died June 21, 1527, Florence)

Multiple Choice

His most famous text is The Prince.

• True

• False

He was a political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic.

Machiavelli wrote The Prince (1513) at the same time he was writing Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy [Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio]).

The two works differ also in substance and manner: The Prince is according to many, dangerously wicked, the Discourses on Livy is

full of advice on how to preserve republics.