Petrarch climbs Mont Ventoux
April 1336
On a clear April morning, Petrarch and his brother walked up the windswept Provencal mountain for no purpose but the view. From the summit he opened Augustine's Confessions to a passage rebuking those who admire mountains while ignoring their own souls. The tension between worldly beauty and spiritual introspection would define humanism itself. He climbed back down chastened, modern.
In context
Also in 1336 (4 other events on record)
- Ashikaga Takauji enters Kyoto and ends the Kenmu Restoration · East Asia · Politics
- Vijayanagara Empire founded in the Deccan · South Asia · Politics
- Jean Buridan publishes on impetus · Europe · Science
- Edward III forbids the export of raw wool to Flanders · Europe · Politics
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Culture
Era
Late Middle Ages (1301–1500), one of 874 events from that era on Saeculum.