Catalogue of the Petrarch Collection Bequeathed by Willard Fiske

Petrarch is traditionally called the father of the Renaissance. He inspired humanist philosophy, which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance. He believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literature - that is, the study of human thought and action. While humanism later became associated with secularism, Petrarch was a devout Christian and did not see a conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith. A highly introspective man, he shaped the nascent humanist movement a great deal because many of the internal conflicts and musings expressed in his writings were seized upon by Renaissance humanist philosophers and argued continually for the next two hundred yearsFiske's huge Petrarch Collection came as a bequethal to the Cornell University Library in 1905. He had started assembling it in Europe in 1881. The printed catalogue contains circa 5000 works, and cites size, pagination, devices and frequent annotations. A revised and expanded version was published in 1974 but it omits many of the longer notes (merely giving cross references to these); accordingly this earlier edition remains valuableWillard Fiske is the author of 'Catalogue of the Petrarch Collection Bequeathed by Willard Fiske', published 2007 under ISBN 9781578984732 and ISBN 1578984734.