Misplaced Pages

#226773

116-507: Nigel Jonathan Spivey (born 18 October 1958) is a British classicist and academic, specialising in classical art and archaeology . He is a senior lecturer in classics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Emmanuel College . He studied at Cambridge, the British School at Rome , and the University of Pisa . As an undergraduate, he was a three-time champion in hammer throw at

232-473: A School of Translators was set up in the border city of Toledo, Spain , to translate from Arabic into Latin. Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were other differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages. Catullus , for instance, was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period. The popularity of different authors also waxed and waned throughout

348-462: A Roman audience saw a play adapted from the Greek by Livius Andronicus. Andronicus also translated Homer's Odyssey into Saturnian verse. The poets Ennius, Accius, and Patruvius followed. Their work survives only in fragments; the earliest Latin authors whose work we have full examples of are the playwrights Plautus and Terence . Much of the best known and most highly thought of Latin literature comes from

464-527: A cardinal and priest of Saint Vitalis . His "Letter to Posterity" (the last letter in Seniles ) gives an autobiography and a synopsis of his philosophy in life. It was originally written in Latin and was completed in 1371 or 1372—the first such autobiography in a thousand years (since Saint Augustine ). While Petrarch's poetry was set to music frequently after his death, especially by Italian madrigal composers of

580-501: A clear disagreement with Dante, in 1346 Petrarch argued in De vita solitaria that Pope Celestine V 's refusal of the papacy in 1294 was a virtuous example of solitary life. Later the politician and thinker Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444) argued for the active life, or " civic humanism ". As a result, a number of political, military, and religious leaders during the Renaissance were inculcated with

696-564: A collection of Cicero 's letters not previously known to have existed, the collection Epistulae ad Atticum , in the Chapter Library ( Biblioteca Capitolare ) of Verona Cathedral . Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited with creating the concept of a historical " Dark Ages ", which most modern scholars now find inaccurate and misleading. Petrarch recounts that on 26 April 1336, with his brother and two servants, he climbed to

812-970: A famous essay ("Preliminari sulla lingua del Petrarca". Petrarca, Canzoniere. Turin, Einaudi, 1964), has described Petrarch's language in terms of "unilinguismo" (contrasted with Dantean "plurilinguismo"). Aura che quelle chiome bionde et crespe cercondi et movi, et se’ mossa da loro, soavemente, et spargi quel dolce oro, et poi ’l raccogli, e ’n bei nodi il rincrespe, tu stai nelli occhi ond’amorose vespe mi pungon sí, che ’nfin qua il sento et ploro, et vacillando cerco il mio tesoro, come animal che spesso adombre e ’ncespe: ch’or me ’l par ritrovar, et or m’accorgo ch’i’ ne son lunge, or mi sollievo or caggio, ch’or quel ch’i’ bramo, or quel ch’è vero scorgo. Aër felice, col bel vivo raggio rimanti; et tu corrente et chiaro gorgo, ché non poss’io cangiar teco vïaggio? Breeze, blowing that blonde curling hair, stirring it, and being softly stirred in turn, scattering that sweet gold about, then gathering it, in

928-836: A few written to long-dead figures from history such as Cicero and Virgil . Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models. Most of his Latin writings are difficult to find today, but several of his works are available in English translations. Several of his Latin works are scheduled to appear in the Harvard University Press series I Tatti . It is difficult to assign any precise dates to his writings because he tended to revise them throughout his life. Petrarch collected his letters into two major sets of books called Rerum familiarum liber (" Letters on Familiar Matters ") and Seniles (" Letters of Old Age "), both of which are available in English translation. The plan for his letters

1044-464: A figure inspired by Augustine of Hippo ; De Viris Illustribus ("On Famous Men"), a series of moral biographies; Rerum Memorandarum Libri , an incomplete treatise on the cardinal virtues ; De Otio Religiosorum ("On Religious Leisure") and De vita solitaria ("On the Solitary Life"), which praise the contemplative life; De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae ("Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul"),

1160-473: A fire, which he later lamented. Additionally, he proclaimed that through legal manipulation his guardians robbed him of his small property inheritance in Florence, which only reinforced his dislike for the legal system. He protested, "I couldn't face making a merchandise of my mind", since he viewed the legal system as the art of selling justice. Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio among

1276-512: A learned vocabulary of international application. Thus, Latin grew from a highly developed cultural product of the Golden and Silver eras of Latin literature to become the international lingua franca in matters diplomatic, scientific, philosophic and religious, until the 17th century. Long before this, Latin had evolved into the Romance languages and Ancient Greek into Modern Greek and its dialects . In

SECTION 10

#1732923546227

1392-454: A limine mures, Ne domini exitio scripta diserta forent; Incutio trepidis eadem defuncta pavorem, Et viget exanimi in corpore prisca fides. The Tuscan bard of deathless fame       Nursed in his breast a double flame,         Unequally divided;       And when I say I had his heart,       While Laura play'd

1508-485: A lovely knot of curls again, you linger around bright eyes whose loving sting pierces me so, till I feel it and weep, and I wander searching for my treasure, like a creature that often shies and kicks: now I seem to find her, now I realise she’s far away, now I’m comforted, now despair, now longing for her, now truly seeing her. Happy air, remain here with your living rays: and you, clear running stream, why can’t I exchange my path for yours? Petrarch

1624-480: A miniature for solo piccolo flute titled Dolce tormento , in which the flutist whispers fragments of Petrarch's Sonnet 132 into the instrument. In November 2003, it was announced that pathological anatomists would be exhuming Petrarch's body from his casket in Arquà Petrarca , to verify 19th-century reports that he had stood 1.83 meters (about six feet), which would have been tall for his period. The team from

1740-607: A mountain merely for the delight of looking from its top. (Or almost the first; for in a high pasture he met an old shepherd, who said that fifty years before he had attained the summit, and had got nothing from it save toil and repentance and torn clothing.) Petrarch was dazed and stirred by the view of the Alps, the mountains around Lyons , the Rhone , the Bay of Marseilles . He took Augustine 's Confessions from his pocket and reflected that his climb

1856-630: A number of years in the 1340s and 1350s he lived in a small house at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse east of Avignon in France. Giovanni died of the plague in 1361. In the same year Petrarch was named canon in Monselice near Padua . Francesca married Francescuolo da Brossano (who was later named executor of Petrarch's will ) that same year. In 1362, shortly after the birth of a daughter, Eletta (the same name as Petrarch's mother), they joined Petrarch in Venice to flee

1972-651: A self-help book which remained popular for hundreds of years; Itinerarium ("Petrarch's Guide to the Holy Land"); invectives against opponents such as doctors, scholastics, and the French ; the Carmen Bucolicum , a collection of 12 pastoral poems; and the unfinished epic Africa . He translated seven psalms, a collection known as the Penitential Psalms . Petrarch also published many volumes of his letters, including

2088-498: A syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. ... [W]e look about us for what is to be found only within. ... How many times, think you, did I turn back that day, to glance at the summit of the mountain which seemed scarcely a cubit high compared with the range of human contemplation James Hillman argues that this rediscovery of the inner world is the real significance of the Ventoux event. The Renaissance begins not with

2204-520: A transcendent single deity. Different cities often worshipped the same deities, sometimes with epithets that distinguished them and specified their local nature. The earliest surviving philosophy from ancient Greece dates back to the 6th century BC, when according to Aristotle Thales of Miletus was considered to have been the first Greek philosopher. Other influential pre-Socratic philosophers include Pythagoras and Heraclitus . The most famous and significant figures in classical Athenian philosophy, from

2320-591: A version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean region and Europe; thus Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic ( c.  8th to 6th centuries BC), Classical ( c.  5th to 4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic ( c.  3rd century BC to 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and

2436-512: A warm winter dressing gown"; various legacies (a horse, a silver cup, a lute, a Madonna ) to his brother and his friends; his house in Vaucluse to its caretaker; money for Masses offered for his soul , and money for the poor; and the bulk of his estate to his son-in-law, Francescuolo da Brossano, who is to give half of it to "the person to whom, as he knows, I wish it to go"; presumably his daughter, Francesca, Brossano's wife. The will mentions neither

SECTION 20

#1732923546227

2552-537: Is a Greek creation". Ancient philosophy was traditionally divided into three branches: logic, physics, and ethics. However, not all of the works of ancient philosophers fit neatly into one of these three branches. For instance, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics have been traditionally classified in the West as "ethics", but in the Arabic world were grouped with logic; in reality, they do not fit neatly into either category. From

2668-412: Is coupled with an aspiration for a virtuous Christian life, and on reaching the summit, he took from his pocket a volume by his beloved mentor, Saint Augustine, that he always carried with him. For pleasure alone he climbed Mont Ventoux, which rises to more than six thousand feet, beyond Vaucluse. It was no great feat, of course; but he was the first recorded Alpinist of modern times, the first to climb

2784-405: Is no evidence Petrarch actually had a cat). On the marble slab, there is a Latin inscription written by Antonio Quarenghi : Etruscus gemino vates ardebat amore: Maximus ignis ego; Laura secundus erat. Quid rides? divinæ illam si gratia formæ, Me dignam eximio fecit amante fides. Si numeros geniumque sacris dedit illa libellis Causa ego ne sævis muribus esca forent. Arcebam sacro vivens

2900-413: Is one of the most influential works of twentieth-century literature. Petrarch Francis Petrarch ( / ˈ p ɛ t r ɑːr k , ˈ p iː t -/ ; 20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374; Latin : Franciscus Petrarcha ; modern Italian : Francesco Petrarca [franˈtʃesko peˈtrarka] ), born Francesco di Petracco , was a scholar from Arezzo and poet of the early Italian Renaissance and one of

3016-511: Is opposition to the teaching of Latin in Italy, it is nonetheless still compulsory in most secondary schools. The same may also be said in the case of France or Greece. Indeed, Ancient Greek is one of the compulsory subjects in Greek secondary education, whereas in France, Latin is one of the optional subjects that can be chosen in a majority of middle schools and high schools. Ancient Greek is also still being taught, but not as much as Latin . One of

3132-502: Is psychological realism in the description of Laura, although Petrarch draws heavily on conventionalised descriptions of love and lovers from troubadour songs and other literature of courtly love . Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, but his unrequited love creates unendurable desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover and the mystic Christian , making it impossible to reconcile the two. Petrarch's quest for love leads to hopelessness and irreconcilable anguish, as he expresses in

3248-553: Is still seen as a foundational aspect of European culture. The legacy of the classical world is not confined to the influence of classical languages. The Roman Empire was taken as a model by later European empires, such as the Spanish and British empires . Classical art has been taken as a model in later periods – medieval Romanesque architecture and Enlightenment-era neoclassical literature were both influenced by classical models, to take but two examples, while James Joyce 's Ulysses

3364-497: Is very different from Dante and his Divina Commedia . In spite of the metaphysical subject, the Commedia is deeply rooted in the cultural and social milieu of turn-of-the-century Florence : Dante's rise to power (1300) and exile (1302); his political passions call for a "violent" use of language, where he uses all the registers, from low and trivial to sublime and philosophical. Petrarch confessed to Boccaccio that he had never read

3480-445: Is very well regarded and remains at the heart of much of our art today. For example, ancient Greek architecture gave us the classical orders: Doric , Ionic , and Corinthian . The Parthenon is still the architectural symbol of the classical world. Greek sculpture is well known and we know the names of several ancient Greek artists: for example, Phidias . With philology, archaeology, and art history, scholars seek understanding of

3596-651: The Archaeological Institute of America in 1879), including many foreign archaeological institutes in Athens and Rome (the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1881, British School at Athens in 1886, American Academy in Rome in 1895, and British School at Rome in 1900). More recently, classical archaeology has taken little part in the theoretical changes in the rest of the discipline, largely ignoring

Nigel Spivey - Misplaced Pages Continue

3712-595: The Avignon Papacy . Petrarch studied law at the University of Montpellier (1316–20) and Bologna (1320–23) with a lifelong friend and schoolmate, Guido Sette , future archbishop of Genoa. Because his father was in the legal profession (a notary ), he insisted that Petrarch and his brother also study law. Petrarch, however, was primarily interested in writing and studying Latin literature and considered these seven years wasted. Petrarch became so distracted by his non-legal interests that his father once threw his books into

3828-675: The Canzoniere (dedicated to Laura) were sonnets , and the Petrarchan sonnet still bears his name. Petrarch is often referred to as the father of humanism and considered by many to be the "father of the Renaissance ". In Secretum meum , he points out that secular achievements do not necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God, arguing instead that God has given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to its fullest. He inspired humanist philosophy, which led to

3944-627: The Commedia , remarks Contini, wondering whether this was true or Petrarch wanted to distance himself from Dante. Dante's language evolves as he grows old, from the courtly love of his early stilnovistic Rime and Vita nuova to the Convivio and Divina Commedia , where Beatrice is sanctified as the goddess of philosophy—the philosophy announced by the Donna Gentile at the death of Beatrice. In contrast, Petrarch's thought and style are relatively uniform throughout his life—he spent much of it revising

4060-676: The Divina Commedia ), the quatrains prefer the ABBA–ABBA to the ABAB–ABAB scheme of the Sicilians . The imperfect rhymes of u with closed o and i with closed e (inherited from Guittone's mistaken rendering of Sicilian verse ) are excluded, but the rhyme of open and closed o is kept. Finally, Petrarch's enjambment creates longer semantic units by connecting one line to the following. The vast majority (317) of Petrarch's 366 poems collected in

4176-478: The Middle Ages , classics and education were tightly intertwined; according to Jan Ziolkowski, there is no era in history in which the link was tighter. Medieval education taught students to imitate earlier classical models, and Latin continued to be the language of scholarship and culture, despite the increasing difference between literary Latin and the vernacular languages of Europe during the period. While Latin

4292-530: The Renaissance in the 16th century, only one musical setting composed during Petrarch's lifetime survives. This is Non al suo amante by Jacopo da Bologna , written around 1350. On 6 April 1327, after Petrarch gave up his vocation as a priest, the sight of a woman called "Laura" in the church of Sainte-Claire d' Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta ("Fragments of Vernacular Matters"). Laura may have been Laura de Noves ,

4408-546: The Roman Empire destroyed most evidence (cultural artefacts) of earlier, conquered civilizations, such as that of the Etruscans . The English word philosophy comes from the Greek word φιλοσοφία, meaning "love of wisdom", probably coined by Pythagoras. Along with the word itself, the discipline of philosophy as we know it today has its roots in ancient Greek thought , and according to Martin West "philosophy as we understand it

4524-399: The University of Padua also hoped to reconstruct his cranium to generate a computerized image of his features to coincide with his 700th birthday. 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, prompting calls for

4640-507: The late antique period . Late Latin survived long after the end of classical antiquity, and was finally replaced by written Romance languages around the 9th century AD. Along with literary forms of Latin, there existed various vernacular dialects, generally known as Vulgar Latin , in use throughout antiquity. These are mainly preserved in sources such as graffiti and the Vindolanda tablets . Latin literature seems to have started in 240 BC, when

4756-526: The 1960s at the University of Konstanz . Reception studies is concerned with how students of classical texts have understood and interpreted them. As such, reception studies is interested in a two-way interaction between reader and text, taking place within a historical context. Though the idea of an "aesthetics of reception" was first put forward by Hans Robert Jauss in 1967, the principles of reception theory go back much earlier than this. As early as 1920, T. S. Eliot wrote that "the past [is] altered by

Nigel Spivey - Misplaced Pages Continue

4872-490: The 19th century, little new literature was still being written in Latin – a practice which had continued as late as the 18th century – and a command of Latin declined in importance. Correspondingly, classical education from the 19th century onwards began to increasingly de-emphasise the importance of the ability to write and speak Latin. In the United Kingdom this process took longer than elsewhere. Composition continued to be

4988-647: The 20th century, the study of classics became less common. In England, for instance, Oxford and Cambridge universities stopped requiring students to have qualifications in Greek in 1920, and in Latin at the end of the 1950s. When the National Curriculum was introduced in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1988, it did not mention the classics. By 2003, only about 10% of state schools in Britain offered any classical subjects to their students at all. In 2016, AQA ,

5104-784: The 5th to the 3rd centuries BC, are Socrates , his student Plato , and Aristotle , who studied at Plato's Academy before founding his own school, known as the Lyceum . Later Greek schools of philosophy, including the Cynics , Stoics , and Epicureans , continued to be influential after the Roman annexation of Greece, and into the post-Classical world. Greek philosophy dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics , metaphysics , ontology , and logic , as well as disciplines which are not today thought of as part of philosophy, such as biology and rhetoric. The language of ancient Rome

5220-410: The Middle Ages and the libertarian spirit of the commune ; Petrarch's moral dilemmas, his refusal to take a stand in politics, his reclusive life point to a different direction, or time. The free commune, the place that had made Dante an eminent politician and scholar, was being dismantled: the signoria was taking its place. Humanism and its spirit of empirical inquiry, however, were making progress—but

5336-682: The Oxford–Cambridge athletics match; he remains a member of the Achilles Club , an Oxbridge sports organisation. During the 1990s, he conducted "Lunch with the FT" interviews for the Financial Times newspaper alongside his academic career. He has presented various television series: Classicist In Western civilization, the study of the Ancient Greek and Roman classics was considered

5452-480: The Pope's dogma. A highly introspective man, Petrarch helped shape the nascent humanist movement as many of the internal conflicts and musings expressed in his writings were embraced by Renaissance humanist philosophers and argued continually for the next 200 years. For example, he struggled with the proper relation between the active and contemplative life, and tended to emphasize the importance of solitude and study. In

5568-470: The United States, philhellenism began to emerge in the 1830s, with a turn "from a love of Rome and a focus on classical grammar to a new focus on Greece and the totality of its society, art, and culture." The 19th century saw the influence of the classical world, and the value of a classical education , decline, especially in the United States, where the subject was often criticised for its elitism. By

5684-545: The Vernacular Tongue (1525) Petrarch is the model of verse composition. Petrarch's influence is evident in the works of Serafino Ciminelli from Aquila (1466–1500) and in the works of Marin Držić (1508–1567) from Dubrovnik . The Romantic composer Franz Liszt set three of Petrarch's Sonnets (47, 104, and 123) to music for voice, Tre sonetti del Petrarca , which he later would transcribe for solo piano for inclusion in

5800-509: The ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine ("common") or Biblical Greek, and its late period mutates imperceptibly into Medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earlier form it closely resembles Classical Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classical and earlier periods included several regional dialects. Ancient Greek

5916-538: The ascent of Mont Ventoux but with the subsequent descent—the "return [...] to the valley of soul", as Hillman puts it. Arguing against such a singular and hyperbolic periodization, Paul James suggests a different reading: In the alternative argument that I want to make, these emotional responses, marked by the changing senses of space and time in Petrarch's writing, suggest a person caught in unsettled tension between two different but contemporaneous ontological formations:

SECTION 50

#1732923546227

6032-475: The city of Rome was founded in 753 BC; in reality, there had been a settlement on the site since around 1000 BC, when the Palatine Hill was settled. The city was originally ruled by kings, first Roman, and then Etruscan – according to Roman tradition, the first Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, ruled from 616 BC. Over the course of the 6th century BC, the city expanded its influence over

6148-427: The classical period written in the classical languages of Latin and Greek. The roots of classical philology lie in the Renaissance , as humanist intellectuals attempted to return to the Latin of the classical period, especially of Cicero , and as scholars attempted to produce more accurate editions of ancient texts. Some of the principles of philology still used today were developed during this period; for instance,

6264-473: The classical period, with poets such as Virgil , Horace , and Ovid ; historians such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus ; orators such as Cicero ; and philosophers such as Seneca the Younger and Lucretius . Late Latin authors include many Christian writers such as Lactantius , Tertullian and Ambrose ; non-Christian authors, such as the historian Ammianus Marcellinus , are also preserved. According to legend,

6380-455: The dominant classical skill in England until the 1870s, when new areas within the discipline began to increase in popularity. In the same decade came the first challenges to the requirement of Greek at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, though it would not be finally abolished for another 50 years. Though the influence of classics as the dominant mode of education in Europe and North America

6496-400: The earliest humanists . Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero 's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism . In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio , and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri . Petrarch

6612-521: The earliest to survive to us today, probably composed in the eighth century BC. These early epics were oral compositions, created without the use of writing. Around the same time that the Homeric epics were composed, the Greek alphabet was introduced; the earliest surviving inscriptions date from around 750 BC. European drama was invented in ancient Greece. Traditionally this was attributed to Thespis , around

6728-400: The eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, along with a few fragments. Sixty years after the end of Aristophanes' career, the next author of comedies to have any substantial body of work survive is Menander , whose style is known as New Comedy . Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes , the nature of the world, and

6844-452: The end of the fifth century BC. Surviving Greek comedy begins later than tragedy; the earliest surviving work, Aristophanes ' Acharnians , comes from 425 BC. However, comedy dates back as early as 486 BC, when the Dionysia added a competition for comedy to the much earlier competition for tragedy. The comedy of the fifth century is known as Old Comedy , and it comes down to us solely in

6960-624: The entirety of Latium . Around the end of the 6th century – traditionally in 510 BC – the kings of Rome were driven out, and the city became a republic. Around 387 BC, Rome was sacked by the Gauls following the Battle of the Allia . It soon recovered from this humiliating defeat, however, and in 381 the inhabitants of Tusculum in Latium were made Roman citizens. This was the first time Roman citizenship

7076-582: The fifth and fourth centuries BC, has traditionally been considered the height of Greek civilisation. The Classical period of Greek history is generally considered to have begun with the first and second Persian invasions of Greece at the start of the Greco-Persian wars, and to have ended with the death of Alexander the Great . Classical Greek culture had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried

SECTION 60

#1732923546227

7192-452: The first time after the reforms of the 1880s, though it did not become part of Oxford's Greats until much later. The second half of the 19th century saw Schliemann 's excavations of Troy and Mycenae ; the first excavations at Olympia and Delos ; and Arthur Evans ' work in Crete, particularly on Knossos . This period also saw the foundation of important archaeological associations (e.g.

7308-471: The flesh, but I would be lying if I did". While it is possible she was an idealized or pseudonymous character—particularly since the name "Laura" has a linguistic connection to the poetic "laurels" Petrarch coveted—Petrarch himself always denied it. His frequent use of l'aura is also remarkable: for example, the line "Erano i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi" may mean both "her hair was all over Laura's body" and "the wind ( l'aura ) blew through her hair". There

7424-580: The form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These different groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or "cults" in the plural, though most of them shared similarities. Also, the Greek religion extended out of Greece and out to neighbouring islands. Many Greek people recognized the major gods and goddesses: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes, Demeter, Hestia and Hera; though philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to posit

7540-538: The foundation of the humanities , and they traditionally have been the cornerstone of an elite higher education. The word classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus , meaning "belonging to the highest class of citizens." The word was originally used to describe the members of the Patricians , the highest class in ancient Rome . By the 2nd century AD the word was used in literary criticism to describe writers of

7656-428: The highest quality. For example, Aulus Gellius , in his Attic Nights , contrasts "classicus" and " proletarius " writers. By the 6th century AD, the word had acquired a second meaning, referring to pupils at a school. Thus, the two modern meanings of the word, referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality and the standard texts used as part of a curriculum, were both derived from Roman use. In

7772-511: The history and culture of a civilization, through critical study of the extant literary and physical artefacts, in order to compose and establish a continual historic narrative of the Ancient World and its peoples. The task is difficult due to a dearth of physical evidence: for example, Sparta was a leading Greek city-state , yet little evidence of it survives to study, and what is available comes from Athens , Sparta's principal rival; likewise,

7888-413: The intellectual flowering of the Renaissance. He believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literature—that is, the study of human thought and action. Petrarch was a devout Catholic and did not see a conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith , although many philosophers and scholars have styled him a Proto-Protestant who challenged

8004-485: The largest army Rome had yet put into the field was wiped out, and one of the two consuls leading it was killed. However, Rome continued to fight, annexing much of Spain and eventually defeating Carthage, ending her position as a major power and securing Roman preeminence in the Western Mediterranean. The classical languages of the ancient Mediterranean world influenced every European language, imparting to each

8120-505: The largest exam board for A-Levels and GCSEs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, announced that it would be scrapping A-Level subjects in Classical Civilisation, Archaeology, and Art History. This left just one out of five exam boards in England which still offered Classical Civilisation as a subject. The decision was immediately denounced by archaeologists and historians, with Natalie Haynes of The Guardian stating that

8236-421: The last decade of the eighteenth century, scholars of ancient philosophy began to study the discipline historically. Previously, works on ancient philosophy had been unconcerned with chronological sequence and with reconstructing the reasoning of ancient thinkers; with what Wolfgang-Ranier Mann calls "New Philosophy", this changed. Another discipline within the classics is "reception studies", which developed in

8352-525: The loss of the A-Level would deprive state school students, 93% of all students, the opportunity to study classics while making it once again the exclusive purview of wealthy private-school students. However, the study of classics has not declined as fast elsewhere in Europe. In 2009, a review of Meeting the Challenge , a collection of conference papers about the teaching of Latin in Europe, noted that though there

8468-620: The mice away,         His love repaid my duty.       Through all my exemplary life,       So well did I in constant strife         Employ my claws and curses,       That even now, though I am dead,       Those nibbling wretches dare not tread         On one of Petrarch's verses. Petrarch's will (dated 4 April 1370) leaves fifty florins to Boccaccio "to buy

8584-483: The middle of the sixth century BC, though the earliest surviving work of Greek drama is Aeschylus ' tragedy The Persians , which dates to 472 BC. Early Greek tragedy was performed by a chorus and two actors, but by the end of Aeschylus' life, a third actor had been introduced, either by him or by Sophocles . The last surviving Greek tragedies are the Bacchae of Euripides and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus , both from

8700-499: The most notable characteristics of the modern study of classics is the diversity of the field. Although traditionally focused on ancient Greece and Rome, the study now encompasses the entire ancient Mediterranean world, thus expanding the studies to Northern Africa and parts of the Middle East . Philology is the study of language preserved in written sources; classical philology is thus concerned with understanding any texts from

8816-447: The notable friends with whom he regularly corresponded. After the death of their parents, Petrarch and his brother Gherardo went back to Avignon in 1326, where he worked in numerous clerical offices. This work gave him much time to devote to his writing. With his first large-scale work, Africa , an epic poem in Latin about the great Roman general Scipio Africanus , Petrarch emerged as a European celebrity. On 8 April 1341, he became

8932-756: The notion that their pursuit of personal fulfillment should be grounded in classical example and philosophical contemplation. Petrarchism was a 16th-century literary movement of Petrarch's style by Italian, French, Spanish and English followers (partially coincident with Mannerism ), who regarded his collection of poetry Il Canzoniere as a canonical text. Among them, the names are listed in order of precedence: Pietro Bembo , Michelangelo , Mellin de Saint-Gelais , Vittoria Colonna , Clément Marot , Garcilaso de la Vega , Giovanni della Casa , Thomas Wyatt , Henry Howard , Joachim du Bellay , Edmund Spenser , and Philip Sidney . Thus, in Pietro Bembo's book Prose of

9048-532: The observation that if a manuscript could be shown to be a copy of an earlier extant manuscript, then it provides no further evidence of the original text, was made as early as 1489 by Angelo Poliziano . Other philological tools took longer to be developed: the first statement, for instance, of the principle that a more difficult reading should be preferred over a simpler one, was in 1697 by Jean Le Clerc . The modern discipline of classical philology began in Germany at

9164-450: The original text than any existing manuscript, could be reconstructed. Classical archaeology is the oldest branch of archaeology, with its roots going back to J. J. Winckelmann 's work on Herculaneum in the 1760s. It was not until the last decades of the 19th century, however, that classical archaeology became part of the tradition of Western classical scholarship. It was included as part of Cambridge University's Classical Tripos for

9280-440: The origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece. Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself. Greek religion encompassed the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in

9396-439: The outer world of nature to the inner world of "soul": I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not

9512-482: The papacy (especially after Avignon) and the empire ( Henry VII , the last hope of the white Guelphs , died near Siena in 1313) had lost much of their original prestige. Petrarch polished and perfected the sonnet form inherited from Giacomo da Lentini and which Dante widely used in his Vita nuova to popularise the new courtly love of the Dolce Stil Novo . The tercet benefits from Dante's terza rima (compare

9628-511: The period: Lucretius , popular during the Carolingian Renaissance , was barely read in the twelfth century, while for Quintilian the reverse is true. The Renaissance led to the increasing study of both ancient literature and ancient history, as well as a revival of classical styles of Latin . From the 14th century, first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe, Renaissance Humanism , an intellectual movement that "advocated

9744-456: The plague then ravaging parts of Europe. A second grandchild, Francesco, was born in 1366, but died before his second birthday. Francesca and her family lived with Petrarch in Venice for five years from 1362 to 1367 at Palazzo Molina ; although Petrarch continued to travel in those years. Between 1361 and 1369 the younger Boccaccio paid the older Petrarch two visits. The first was in Venice, the second

9860-544: The plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines, and these "improved" versions were performed throughout the 18th century. In the United States, the nation's Founders were strongly influenced by the classics, and they looked in particular to the Roman Republic for their form of government. From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin. In this period Johann Winckelmann 's claims for

9976-451: The poet found that his grief was as difficult to live with as was his former despair. Later, in his "Letter to Posterity", Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair—my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of

10092-436: The popularity of " New Archaeology ", which emphasized the development of general laws derived from studying material culture, in the 1960s. New Archaeology is still criticized by traditional minded scholars of classical archaeology despite a wide acceptance of its basic techniques. Some art historians focus their study on the development of art in the classical world. Indeed, the art and architecture of ancient Rome and Greece

10208-520: The present as much as the present is directed by the past"; Charles Martindale describes this as a "cardinal principle" for many versions of modern reception theory. Ancient Greece was the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period , beginning in the eighth century BC, to the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC. The Classical period , during

10324-628: The property in Arquà nor his library; Petrarch's library of notable manuscripts was already promised to Venice, in exchange for the Palazzo Molina. This arrangement was probably cancelled when he moved to Padua, the enemy of Venice, in 1368. The library was seized by the lords of Padua, and his books and manuscripts are now widely scattered over Europe. Nevertheless, the Biblioteca Marciana traditionally claimed this bequest as its founding, although it

10440-434: 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 42. He is credited with being the first and most famous aficionado of Numismatics . He described visiting Rome and asking peasants to bring him ancient coins they would find in

10556-428: The same mountain a few years before, and ascents accomplished during the Middle Ages have been recorded, including that of Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne . Scholars note that Petrarch's letter to Dionigi displays a strikingly "modern" attitude of aesthetic gratification in the grandeur of the scenery and is still often cited in books and journals devoted to the sport of mountaineering . In Petrarch, this attitude

10672-419: The second poet laureate since classical antiquity and was crowned by Roman Senatori Giordano Orsini and Orso dell'Anguillara on the holy grounds of Rome's Capitol . He traveled widely in Europe, served as an ambassador, and has been called "the first tourist " because he traveled for pleasure such as his ascent of Mont Ventoux . During his travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and

10788-427: The second part,         I must not be derided.       For my fidelity was such,       It merited regard as much         As Laura's grace and beauty;       She first inspired the poet's lay,       But since I drove

10904-479: The series of paradoxes in Rima 134 "Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra;/e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio": "I find no peace, and yet I make no war:/and fear, and hope: and burn, and I am ice". Laura is unreachable and evanescent – descriptions of her are evocative yet fragmentary. Francesco de Sanctis praises the powerful music of his verse in his Storia della letteratura italiana . Gianfranco Contini, in

11020-524: The songs and sonnets of the Canzoniere rather than moving to new subjects or poetry. Here, poetry alone provides a consolation for personal grief, much less philosophy or politics (as in Dante), for Petrarch fights within himself (sensuality versus mysticism , profane versus Christian literature ), not against anything outside of himself. The strong moral and political convictions which had inspired Dante belong to

11136-608: The specialised science and technology vocabularies, the influence of Latin and Greek is notable. Ecclesiastical Latin , the Roman Catholic Church's official language, remains a living legacy of the classical world in the contemporary world. Latin had an impact far beyond the classical world. It continued to be the pre-eminent language for serious writings in Europe long after the fall of the Roman Empire. The modern Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Galician, Catalan) all derive from Latin. Latin

11252-579: The study and imitation of classical antiquity", developed. Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe, introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to Western Europe. This reintroduction was initiated by Petrarch (1304–1374) and Boccaccio (1313–1375) who commissioned a Calabrian scholar to translate the Homeric poems . This humanist educational reform spread from Italy, in Catholic countries as it

11368-566: The suite Années de Pèlerinage . Liszt also set a poem by Victor Hugo , "Oh! quand je dors" in which Petrarch and Laura are invoked as the epitome of erotic love. While in Avignon in 1991, Modernist composer Elliott Carter completed his solo flute piece Scrivo in Vento which is in part inspired by and structured by Petrarch's Sonnet 212, Beato in sogno . It was premiered on Petrarch's 687th birthday. In 2004, Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho crafted

11484-418: The superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements, while in the literary sphere, G. E. Lessing "returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement". In the United Kingdom, the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century. The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have been one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School . In

11600-632: The top of Mont Ventoux (1,912 meters (6,273 ft), a feat which he undertook for recreation rather than necessity. The exploit is described in a famous letter addressed to his friend and confessor, the monk Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro , composed some time after the fact. In it, Petrarch claimed to have been inspired by Philip V of Macedon 's ascent of Mount Haemo and that an aged peasant had told him that nobody had ascended Ventoux before or after himself, 50 years earlier, and warned him against attempting to do so. The nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt noted that Jean Buridan had climbed

11716-487: The traditional and the modern. Petrarch spent the later part of his life journeying through northern Italy and southern France as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His career in the Church did not allow him to marry, but he is believed to have fathered two children by a woman (or women) unknown to posterity. A son, Giovanni, was born in 1337, and a daughter, Francesca, was born in 1343. He later legitimized both. For

11832-415: The turn of the nineteenth century. It was during this period that scientific principles of philology began to be put together into a coherent whole, in order to provide a set of rules by which scholars could determine which manuscripts were most accurate. This "new philology", as it was known, centered around the construction of a genealogy of manuscripts, with which a hypothetical common ancestor, closer to

11948-594: The wife of Count Hugues de Sade (an ancestor of the Marquis de Sade ). There is little definite information in Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little or no personal contact. According to his "Secretum", she refused him because she was already married. He channeled his feelings into love poems that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who pursue women. Upon her death in 1348,

12064-576: Was Francesco di Petracco ("Francesco [son] of Petracco"), which he Latinized to Franciscus Petrarcha . His younger brother Gherardo (Gerard Petrarch) was born in Incisa in Val d'Arno in 1307. Dante Alighieri was a friend of his father. Petrarch spent his early childhood in the village of Incisa , near Florence . He spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby Carpentras , where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V , who moved there in 1309 to begin

12180-447: Was Latin, a member of the Italic family of languages . The earliest surviving inscription in Latin comes from the 7th century BC, on a brooch from Palestrina . Latin from between this point and the early 1st century BC is known as Old Latin . Most surviving Latin literature is Classical Latin , from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD. Latin then evolved into Late Latin , in use during

12296-450: Was a prime mover in the recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece . He encouraged and advised Leontius Pilatus 's translation of Homer from a manuscript purchased by Boccaccio, although he was severely critical of the result. Petrarch had acquired a copy, which he did not entrust to Leontius, but he knew no Greek ; Petrarch said of himself, "Homer was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer". In 1345 he personally discovered

12412-680: Was adopted by the Jesuits , and in countries that became Protestant such as England, Germany, and the Low Countries, in order to ensure that future clerics were able to study the New Testament in the original language. The late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition, as writers consciously adapted classical models. Classical models were so highly prized that

12528-565: Was extended in this way. Rome went on to expand its area of influence, until by 269 the entirety of the Italian peninsula was under Roman rule. Soon afterwards, in 264, the First Punic War began; it lasted until 241. The Second Punic War began in 218, and by the end of that year, the Carthaginian general Hannibal had invaded Italy. The war saw Rome's worst defeat to that point at Cannae ;

12644-658: Was hugely influential, according to thirteenth-century English philosopher Roger Bacon , "there are not four men in Latin Christendom who are acquainted with the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic grammars." Greek was rarely studied in the West, and Greek literature was known almost solely in Latin translation. The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod , whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, along with most of Plato, were unavailable in Christian Europe. Some were rediscovered through Arabic translations;

12760-528: Was in Padua. About 1368 Petrarch and Francesca (with her family) moved to the small town of Arquà in the Euganean Hills near Padua, where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in his house in Arquà on 18/19 July 1374. The house now hosts a permanent exhibition of Petrarch's works and curiosities, including the famous tomb of an embalmed cat long believed to be Petrarch's (although there

12876-460: Was in decline in the 19th century, the discipline was rapidly evolving in the same period. Classical scholarship was becoming more systematic and scientific , especially with the "new philology " created at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. Its scope was also broadening: it was during the 19th century that ancient history and classical archaeology began to be seen as part of classics, rather than separate disciplines. During

12992-689: Was in fact founded by Cardinal Bessarion in 1468. Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, notably the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta ("Fragments of Vernacular Matters"), a collection of 366 lyric poems in various genres also known as 'canzoniere' ('songbook'), and I trionfi ("The Triumphs "), 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. Among them are Secretum ("My Secret Book"), an intensely personal, imaginary dialogue with

13108-583: Was later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca . Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry . He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the " Dark Ages ". Petrarch was born in the Tuscan city Arezzo on 20 July 1304. He was the son of Ser Petracco (a diminutive nickname for Pietro ) and his wife Eletta Canigiani. Petrarch's birth name

13224-412: Was merely an allegory of aspiration toward a better life. As the book fell open , Petrarch's eyes were immediately drawn to the following words: And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not. Petrarch's response was to turn from

13340-607: Was suggested to him by knowledge of Cicero 's letters. These were published "without names" to protect the recipients, all of whom had close relationships to Petrarch. The recipients of these letters included Philippe de Cabassoles , bishop of Cavaillon ; Ildebrandino Conti , bishop of Padua ; Cola di Rienzo , tribune of Rome; Francesco Nelli , priest of the Prior of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Florence ; and Niccolò di Capoccia ,

13456-576: Was the language of Homer and of classical Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to the vocabulary of English and many other European languages, and has been a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions since the Renaissance. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in other scientific terminology. The earliest surviving works of Greek literature are epic poetry . Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey are

#226773