Petrarch's English Laurels, 1475‐1700

“The European Renaissance, let us say, began on Easter Sunday, 8 April 1341”. We are likely to find few more confident statements at the head of any other work noticed in Reference Reviews. This one at least is then justified, as the day on which Petrarch received a crown of laurel on the Capitoline Hill in Rome and in his speech in reply effectively stated a manifesto for the revival and study of ancient classical learning and literature. As the most celebrated scholar and poet of his time, the effective founder of Humanism was not only courted throughout Europe but...