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Abstract Based on Petrarch's epistle De ignorantia, the present paper offers a critique of the thesis of the modern demarcation of humanism proposed by Th. E. Mommsen, a thesis that still causes reverberations within the scholarly literature that focuses on Petrarch. The paper analyses Petrarch's stance on what he calls medium nostrum tempus in relation with Antiquity and the way in which his notion of darkness represents a means to delimit humanism within a christian philosophy of history based on ethics. The conclusion of the paper shows that Th. E. Mommsen's interpretation, together with other contemporary readings of humanism must be recalibrated in accordance with the practical and eschatological finality that Petrarch gave to his notion of studia humanitatis.
Keywords Petrarch, humanism, moral philosophy, ignorance, self-care, Middle Ages, modernity
1. On ignorance: a manifesto for humanism
De ignorantia1 is a polemic text in response to the calumny made by four of Petrarch's friends (who are thus proven to be pretended friends). A manuscript copy of the work De ignorantia preserved in Venice (Codex Marcianus Latinus, IV, 86) contains a marginalia that lists the names of the four objectors of Petrarch: Leonardo Dandolo, a Venetian man (1330-1405), the son of Dodge Andrea Dandolo, followed by Zaccaria Contarini (probably a law graduate in Paris), a Venetian nobleman and diplomat, Tommaso Talenti, a successful Venetian merchant, and Guido da Bagnolo, the court physician of the King of Cyprus, but more importantly, a former student of the University of Bologna and, of all the aforementioned friends, an expert in Aristotle's writings, the commentaries to these and, of course, also in the works of Averroes.
The one who informs Petrarch about the rumours that had already been circulating since 1366, spread by the four objectors, is also the recipient of the dedicatory letter at the beginning of De ignorantia, Donato degli Albanzani de Pratovecchio (1328-1411).2 A letter sent to Boccaccio reveals that Petrarch started writing De ignorantia at the end of 1367 while navigating on the river Po towards Padua, but this initial version was only finalised towards January 1371 (three and a half years before his death). Only then did Petrarch send his work to Donato Albanzani in the form of a letter accompanied by the introductory dedication....