Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch, is an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.

Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the fourteenth-century Renaissance.

Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism".

In the sixteenth century, Pietro Bembo will create the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri.

Petrarch is later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.

Petrarch's sonnets ae admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and become a model for lyrical poetry.

He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages."