Boccaccio's lifelong friend Petrarch met love at first site on the 1327 anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus, and over the next 21 years composed 207 poems, all concerned with a single theme—love. These manus were gradually formed into a collection of works, published as The Collection. In the history of Western literature, never before had such deep and specific content, and such touching techniques been used to express deep emotions of love and worldly thought. Petrarch's The Collection not only made him famous in Italy, but even becoming popular all across France. In 1340, the Roman Senate and the University of Paris issued him a laureate for his work. In the end, he chose to receive the title from the Senate.
On April 8, 1341, in Rome, surrounded by youths and senators, wearing the purple robe granted by the king, Petrarch made tracks for the Palace of the Senate at the Capitolin Hill to accept the laureate and senior senator Stefano Colonna's eulogy.
Petrarch was dubbed the "father of the Humanism" (or the "father of the Renaissance" ), not for his poetry, but his scholarship. Since he began his education in Bologna, he developed an unsatisfiable hunger for classic literatures, becoming lost in dusty historic works in his quest for ancient wisdom. The undeniable impact of the Renaissance uprising can be seen directly in the manus of Byzantium. Petrarch received more better education, traveled to more places, met more scholars and explored more libraries than Boccaccio. Petrarch had even urged Boccaccio to collect classical Greek manus, encouraging him to introduce Homer's Iliad and Odyssey to the West.
Whether reform or revolution, any significant leap of progress of mankind takes the precondition of a yearning for liberation. Humanism, of course, did not simply result in artistic prosperity alone. With it came religious reform, the modern states, the industrial revolution, the scientific revolution, geographical discovery and a series of profound developments that would change humanity forever. An unprecedented expansion of human knowledge rocked the establishment of a fortress of "ignorance" ; from Dante to Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli and Rabelais; to Copernicus, Galileo, Cardano, Giotto and Leonardo da Vinci…each of these great minds is an illuminating flash both in the history of Europe and in the history of humankind. Fredreich Engels famously described the Renaissance as "an era that called upon great men, but also created them."
Humankind had never before experienced such a great change; the wealth of power discovered in liberation was unprecedented. It was truly a golden age for humanity, talents shining through in all fields of art, literature, science, education and religion, redefining what was possible. Together, they stretched the arms of humanity, leaping forward into a modern era.
IN 1341, Petrarch ascended the Palace of the Senate at the Capitolin Hill and accepted his laureate. "The father of humanism" bid farewell to the Middle Ages. Meanwhile in China, hundreds of thousands of Chinese struggled against the cruel oppression of the feudal rulers.
Petrarch defined a new era in European history—the Dark Ages. In China, this was the notoriously dark Yuan Dynasty. Compared with the European Dark Ages, the Yuan Dynasty was already darker than the darkest of times past, not only itself a step back for civilization, but the precursor to two following dynasties that would rock China for generations to come.
The invaders were simply barbaric. From military expansion to the construction of a barbaric regime, acts of piracy and conquer defined their rule.
Song Dynasty official Peng Daya described the rape and pillage of the Mongolian army in his Account on the Dark Tartars: "They are hungry—they know what they want. They fight, they slaughter, they are fearless and ruthless. The Han people can only surrender."
Just as the Song Emperess Dowager Xie and her son—the emperor—were taken into captivity, poet Wang Yuan, who was with them, described in his series of poems The Waterclouds the state of the nation: "The northern army want to collect their trophies, so the officials are plundering the people."
The Mongol rule had already gone, but their hallmark "pillaging desire" and the Han surrender made an eternal mark on Chinese civilization's history.
Under the Yuan rule, the Han people were lowered to slavery. Stripped of their possessions, they were denied even the most fundamental human rights. The Han couldn't hunt, study martial arts, possess weapons, gather in communal worship, go to market, or even roam the streets at night…
As Europe experienced a re-awakening with the emergence of great ideological minds, crippled China suffered under the oppression of Mongolian invaders.
In 1368, following an era of pain and struggle, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Mongol rule, taking the throne for himself. The Han people's social status was significantly raised, and the economy began to expand. But China's path did not change, coming with the end of one cycle the beginning of another, quickly returning to its authoritarian past. Some things were even better in the past.
Scholar Chen Yinke once famously stated, "The thousands of years of Chinese culture go beyond simply the bounds of the Zhao's Song Dynasty." Song founder Zhao Kuangyin passed an imperial order not only to unite the nation, but also to openly accept the recommendations and criticism of scholars, fostering an unprecedented era of liberalized academia. This led to significant developments in Song's government, economy, technology and the arts, which would become the pinnacle of the past dynasties. But, like clockwork, with the rise of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911), this golden age for scholars was left behind by tyranny and violence.
