Today's entry in Who's Who in the Medical Humanities is Francesco Petrarch, often referred to as the father of humanism. Biographical details come from the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Petrarch was born in 1304 in Arezzo, Italy. His father Petracco was a clerk at one of the courts of justice in Florence, but was banished in 1302 along with the other White Guelphs. Petrarch was raised mostly at Pisa and Avignon, and, like so many of the humanists, trained in the law at Montpellier and more prominently at Bologna. He found the practice of law tiresome, however, and after his father's death in 1323, returned to Avignon and took minor orders, where it is said that he met the love of his life, the lady Laura.
By 1330, Petrarch commenced a period of wandering, which he documented in his initimable epistolary form. He increasingly sought out "lost" ancient texts, many of which he translated, and earned enough fame that he was publicly crowned as poet and historian of Rome in 1341. He also befriended Boccaccio, and their narratives regarding the Black Death are among the most illuminating of the ethos of the time. Says Petrarch in a letter to his brother who was the lone survivor of 35 in his monastery at Monrieux,
My brother! My brother! My brother! A new beginning to a letter, though used by Marcus Tullius [Cicero] fourteen hundred years ago. Alas! my beloved brother, what shall I say? How shall I begin? Whither shall I turn? On all sides is sorrow; everywhere is fear. I would, my brother, that I had never been born, or, at least, had died before these times. How will posterity believe that there has been a time when without the lightnings of heaven or the fires of earth, without wars or other visible slaughter, not this or that part of the earth, but well-nigh the whole globe, has remained without inhabitants. When has any such thing been even heard or seen; in what annals has it ever been read that houses were left vacant, cities deserted, the country neglected, the fields too small for the dead and a fearful and universal solitude over the whole earth?... Oh happy people of the future, who have not known these miseries and perchance will class our testimony with the fables. We have, indeed, deserved these [punishments] and even greater; but our forefathers also have deserved them, and may our posterity not also merit the same...
Though, as ever, something pains me in attempting to say anything meaningful about such a humanist in the truncated form of a blog post, part of what makes Petrarch so significant for the modern-day humanist is contained in this excerpt: the reference to Cicero. I have tried to explain in this series of posts that a crucial part of the studia humanitatis was the focus on classical sources. Though some have described this as a rediscovery of antiquity, Bouwsma wryly remarks in his edifying pamphlet The Culture of Renaissance Humanism that this can hardly be correct insofar as the ancient sources never really disappeared from view.
The enduring and extant trope (advanced most influentially by Burckhardt) of seeing the Middle Ages as a benighted time that gave way to the flowering of culture in the Renaissance is simply unsustainable for countless reasons, among them that quite profound "flowerings" occurred during the Carolingian and the Twelfth Century Renaissances (The fact that these movements are described as "Renaissances" underscores the point).
Nevertheless, it certainly seems accurate to suggest that something remarkable was going on with the late medieval and Renaissance humanists, and it is equally accurate to identify an important role for Petrarch in that process. Part of what Petrarch sought in his search for the edification of the ancients was guidance in the cultivation of virtu in the individual. Context is important here; and while a late humanist like Montaigne was more removed from the influence of high Scholasticism on learning and culture, an early humanist like Petrarch was educated and lived while that influence was, if not at its apex, certainly remained pervasive. The Scholastic emphasis on logic and form encouraged use and reflection upon abstractions that were of little relevance to the late medieval who lived outside the traditional centers of learning (monasteries and universities).
Petrarch turned to the ancient sources, then, at least in part with an eye to receiving instruction on how to cultivate virtue in daily life, on how to bring the educational project to life in life itself, to return to Plato's basic and resonant question: how should I live? It must be remembered that the studia humanitatis was first and foremost an educational program, with the goal, at least for Petrarch, of using the seven liberal arts in the instruction of excellence and virtue. Where current academic instruction, at least at the postsecondary stage, is criticized as being removed from people's daily lives and practices, Petrarch's mission is a powerful reminder of the expansive possibilities that the humanities can facilitate.
Moreover, while it is serious overstatement, IMO, to argue that the Western concept of the self was born through the humanities, it seems accurate to contend that Petrarch and many of the other humanists emphasized the significance of education on the self, of the importance of arete for the individual. In a time where the pervading ethos was one of order and stability, where individualist pretensions to social mobility and improvement would be met with disbelief, if not outright suspicion and hostility, the importance of emphasizing the possibility of "self-improvement" through humanist education may be more apparent.
Finally, if one of the principal concerns of health care experiences in the U.S. is that they can be dehumanizing and impersonal, taking instruction from Petrarch in terms of medical education may be worthwhile. Understanding that education can -- should? -- be used in the cultivation of individual virtue, and in making such a project accessible and meaningful in one's daily practices seems at least worthwhile and arguably a great deal more than that.
Ad fontes!
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