The Legitimacy of the Modern Age by Hans Blumenberg describes Petrarch's ascent of Ventoux as one of the great moments that oscillate indecisively between the epochs, namely between the medieval period and modernity. He also uses it to illustrate his theory of intellectual history: The description of the ascent of Mont Ventoux exemplifies graphically what is meant by the 'reality' of history as the reoccupation of formal systems of positions.