A poet laureate of Rome, many claim Petrarch's work as kickstarting the Renaissance. Much of his writing was in Latin, but his sequence of poems in the vernacular, triggered by the sight of a young woman named Laura, became a foundation of modern Italian. Laura did notreturn the poet's love, but Petrarch stayed true even after Laura's early death. Laura inspired the 366poems that make up this world classic, Canzoniere. Petrarch died in his seventies in 1374,andwas writing and revising his sonnets into his last years. The late Peter Thornton was a supreme 21st century example of a being from earlier centuries: a gentleman scholar. He gained a PhD on Milton's Paradise Los t and was a professor of English for a while, but eventually shifted careers from academia to the law. His passion for the poetry of Renaissance Italy never lessened, though, and he worked to translate it for the modern English-speaking world. Leading Dante scholars poured praise on his translation of Dante's Inferno - which "immediately joins ranks with the very best available in English" (Richard Lansing). Peter then took on the intense challenge of presenting Petrarch in English for the modern ear. Battling cancer, he stayed sublimely happy, his last days being in editorial meetings adding the final refinements to this delicious text. It stands as a crowning achievement to a remarkable life.

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