Key Points

• The ideas characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in late 13th century Florence, in particular in the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374).
• The literature and poetry of the Renaissance was largely influenced by the developing science and philosophy.
• The Humanist Francesco Petrarch, a key figure in the renewed sense of scholarship, was also an accomplished poet, publishing several important works of poetry in Italian as well as Latin.
• Petrarch’s disciple, Giovanni Boccaccio, became a major author in his own right, whose major work, The Decameron, was a source of inspiration and plots for many English authors in the Renaissance.
• A generation before Petrarch and Boccaccio, Dante Alighieri set the stage for Renaissance literature with his Divine Comedy, widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
• Leonardo Bruni was an Italian humanist, historian, and statesman, often recognized as the first modern historian.