“The Drink” by Ron Padgett from Collected Poems. © Coffee House Press, 2013. ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2017 It's the birthday of the Italian humanist, scholar, and poet Francesco Petrarca, better known as Petrarch, born in Arezzo, Italy (1304). He's usually considered to have lived just before the Italian Renaissance movement in art and literature began, but he was one of the most important influences on Renaissance artists and writers. More than anyone else from his age, he advocated for the restoration of classical Roman literature and politics. He read Cicero and Virgil obsessively, and he spent his adolescence traveling through Europe in search of old Latin manuscripts. His father became so fed up with his interest in Roman literature that he threw all of his books by Latin authors into a fire. In 1347, Petrarch supported a failed attempt to establish an ancient Roman-style republic.
Never let those bugs stop us. They'll soon be gone, eaten from the skies by our winged friends. Our Renaissance friends had the same seven year visits. Never give up!
Never let those bugs stop us. They'll soon be gone, eaten from the skies by our winged friends. Our Renaissance friends had the same seven year visits. Never give up!