Petrarch and the Mountain

A story of uphill endurance and modern virtue.

Petrarch was having a shit time climbing the mountain.

It was the year 1336 and the Italian poet was midway up the slope of Mount Ventoux. He had traveled to Provence to summit the mountain in southern France with his brother and a couple of servants. And it wasn’t going well.

In a letter he later wrote to his friend and former confessor, Dennis Roberti, Petrarch described the mountain as “a very steep and almost inaccessible mass of stony soil.” His only motive to climb it had been “the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer.”

While his group was strong of mind and body, “fatigue quickly followed upon our excessive exertion, and we soon came to a halt at the top of a certain cliff.” It wouldn’t be easy.

Francesco Petrarca was born and raised in the Tuscan town of Arrezo in 1304. One of Europe’s first humanists, Petrarch has long been studied for his lyrical poetry and Latin translations of Cicero and Virgil. He’s also remembered for coining the term “the Dark Ages” to des…