Francesco Petrarca known as Petrarch, born July 20, 1304 in Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy was an Italian scholar, poet and humanist. He contributed to the Renaissance flowering of lyric poetry. Due to his frequent traveling and an curious mind, he used to meet scholars and searched for classicals writings and manuscripts. He was regarded as the greatest scholar of his era.
. Traveling as a diplomatic envoy for the Church, he was also able to search for forgotten classical texts. Throughout his lifetime, Petrarch amassed an impressive collection of grrat texts, which he later bequeathed to Venice in exchange for a house, refuge from the plague.

As Petrarch learned more about the classical period, he began to venerate that era and rail against the limitations of his own time. Though he felt that he lived "amid varied and confusing storms," Petrarch believed that humanity could once more reach the heights of past accomplishments. The doctrine he supported became known as humanism, and formed a bridge from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

Petrarch's other passion was writing. His first pieces were poems that he composed after the death of his mother. He would go on to write sonnets, letters, histories and more. Petrarch's writing was greatly admired during his lifetime, and he was crowned Rome's poet laureate in 1341.