Dissent from Mt. Ventoux: Between Christian and Secular Humanism in Petrarch’s de Ascensu Montis Ventosi
Erik Ellis
Petrarch’s letter de Ascensu Montis Ventosi has long served as the founding document of “renaissance humanism”. Since thebeginning renaissance studies in mid-nineteenth century, become almost a talisman for summoning new, secular spirit humanism that spontaneously arrived Italy fourteenth took hold hearts and minds Europeans fifteenth led to cataclysmic cultural, religious, political changes sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth centuries. This reading, still common among non-specialists, especially English-speaking world, is overly simplistic ignores profound debt classical Christian tradition, obscuring fundamentally religious character letter. article examines how scholars came assign so much importance offers an interpretation stresses continuity with tradition his desire revitalize rather than reinvent traditions scholarship contemplation.
Scripta mediaevalia