The Petrarchan Moment
Humanism was a movement with a political mission, and its founder was Petrarch.
Paul A. Rahe is a professor of history at Hillsdale College. He is the author of Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War, Religion, Commerce, Climate, Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit of Political Vigilance, and the Foundations of the Modern Republic (Yale University Press).