We'll look at what the poet and father of Humanism, Francesco Petrarch, wrote about Dante in a letter to Boccaccio. Dante and Petrarch in many ways represent the two main reactions to the corruption of the Church and the negative anthropology that developed after the Schism: Dante regenerates a positive comprehensive cosmology, while Petrarch limits the focus to the human context and dismisses that which lies beyond.

But it is still an open question, as to why Petrarch refused to see how Dante introduces a positive form of Humanism in the Divine Comedy, and elevates the Classical Tradition and Greek Mythology, while still unifying this within something bigger.

Thanks for listening!