Francesco Petrarca (Petrarcha) (July 20, 1304 - July 19, 1374) was an Italian scholar, poet, and early Renaissance humanist. Petrarch is often popularly called the "father of humanism". Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent that of Dante and Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for modern Italian, later endorsed by the Accademia della Crusca. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Petrarch. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarch
