The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics. The first book that was dated and printed under his name appeared in 1495.
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism.
Francis Petrarch, born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar and poet of the early Italian Renaissance and one of the earliest humanists.
Charles IV, also known as Charles of Luxembourg, born Wenceslaus, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death in 1378. He was elected King of Germany in 1346 and became King of Bohemia that same year. He was a member of the House of Luxembourg from his father's side and the Bohemian House of Přemyslid from his mother's side; he emphasized the latter due to his lifelong affinity for the Bohemian side of his inheritance, and also because his direct ancestors in the Přemyslid line included two saints.
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries. His most celebrated finds are De rerum natura, the only surviving work by Lucretius, De architectura by Vitruvius, lost orations by Cicero such as Pro Sexto Roscio, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Statius' Silvae, and Silius Italicus's Punica, as well as works by several minor authors such as Frontinus' De aquaeductu, Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae, Nonius Marcellus, Probus, Flavius Caper, and Eutyches.
Stefano Colonna was the name of several members of the Italian family of Colonna. The most important include:
De viris illustribus is an unfinished collection of biographies, written in Latin, by the 14th-century Italian author Francesco Petrarca. These biographies are a set of Lives similar in idea to Plutarch's Parallel Lives. The works were unfinished. However he was famous enough for these and other works to receive two invitations to be crowned poet laureate. He received these invitations on exactly the same day, April 8, 1341, one being from the Paris University and the other from the Roman Senate. He accepted the Roman invitation.
Epistolae familiares is the title of a collection of letters of Petrarch which he edited during his lifetime. He originally called the collection Epistolarum mearum ad diversos liber but this was later shortened to the current title.
Francesco Nelli was the secretary of bishop Angelo Acciaioli I and a pastor at the Prior of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Florence. Nelli corresponded much with Francesco Petrarch as is evident by the fifty letters still existing of his to Petrarch, and the thirty-eight letters still existing from Petrarch to him. Six of the nineteen letters of Petrarch's Liber sine nomine are addressed to Nelli.
Philippe de Cabassole or Philippe de Cabassoles (1305–1372), the Bishop of Cavaillon, Seigneur of Vaucluse, was the great protector of Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarch.
The Italian poet Petrarch wrote about his ascent of Mont Ventoux on 26 April 1336 in a well-known letter published as one of his Epistolae familiares. In this letter, written around 1350, Petrarch claimed to be the first person since antiquity to have climbed a mountain for the view. Although the historical accuracy of his account has been questioned by modern scholars, it is often cited in discussions of the new spirit of the Renaissance.
Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro OESA was an Augustinian friar who was at one time Petrarch's confessor, and who taught Boccaccio at the beginning of his education in the humanities. He was Bishop of Monopoli in Apulia. He was surnamed, not uncommonly for the trecento, for the town in which he was born, now Sansepolcro in Tuscany. His family name was de' Roberti, which no longer exists. Dionigi is the Italian form of Dennis, Latin Dionysius.
Ser Petracco was the father to the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca. His father was Ser Parenzo, son of Ser Garzo who reputedly lived to be 100. They all were notaries, the same office that Ser Petracco held in Florence. The family did have a small property in Florence. His wife’s name was Eletta Canigiani (1270—1319), the mother to Petrarch, whom he married around 1302. Petrarch’s granddaughter was named after her.
Rinaldo Cavalchini (1291–1362) lived in Villafranca di Verona near Verona and was better known as Rinaldo from Villafranca.
Lodewijk Heyligen was a Flemish Benedictine monk and music theorist who served as the master of music of cardinal Giovanni Colonna in Avignon. There he became one of the closest friends of the Italian poet Petrarch. His Latin name Ludovicus Sanctus means Louis the Saint and is a literal translation of the Flemish name Lodewijk Heyligen.
Giordano Orsini was a Roman nobleman of the 14th century. Exponent of the powerful Orsini family, he was son of Matteo Rosso II Orsini, and because of that nephew of Pope Nicholas III and of cardinal Giordano Orsini. Senatore of Rome in 1341 together with Orso dell'Anguillara, on 8 April of that year they bestowed the laurel crown to Francesco Petrarca on the Capitoline Hill. During the revolutionary attempt of Cola di Rienzo, he favoured the tribune, unlike the rest of the Roman nobility. Chief of the Montegiordano line of the family, he possibly gave the name to this Roman hill.
Triumphs is a 14th-century Italian series of poems, written by Petrarch in the Tuscan language. The poem evokes the Roman ceremony of triumph, where victorious generals and their armies were led in procession by the captives and spoils they had taken in war. This was a popular and influential poem series when it was published.
Fra Giovanni Colonna (1298? – 1343/44) was an Italian Dominican friar and scholar. Educated in France, he served as a preacher and vicar in Rome, chaplain in Cyprus and lector in Tivoli. He lived and worked in Avignon for a time and traveled widely in the Near East during his Cypriot period.
Guido Sette (1304–1367/68) was the archbishop of Genoa from 1358 until his death. He was a close friend of Petrarch.
Ildebrandino Conti was a Roman nobleman and Catholic prelate who served as the bishop of Padua from 1319 until his death.
