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Because it
is there. The people from the Ancient
and Medieval periods of history would have been astonished at such an answer. Petrarch (1304 - 1374) may not have been the
first naturalist in history but his poetry added an appreciation of nature and
a love of scenic beauty to human culture more significantly than ever before. In a way, he was to appreciation of nature as
Columbus America
"The ascent of a mountain for its own sake was unheard
of, and there could be no thought of the companionship of friends or
acquaintances. Petrarch took with him only his younger brother and two country
people from the last place where he halted. At the foot of the mountain an old
herdsman besought him to turn back, saying that he himself had attempted to
climb it fifty years before, and had brought home nothing but repentance,
broken bones, and torn clothes, and that neither before nor after had anyone ventured
to do the same. Nevertheless, they struggled forward and upward, till the
clouds lay beneath their feet, and at last they reached the top. A description
of the view from the summit would be looked for in vain, not because the poet
was insensible to it, but, on the contrary, because the impression was too
overwhelming. His whole past life, with all its follies, rose before his mind;
he remembered that ten years ago that day he had quitted Bologna a young man,
and turned a longing gaze toward his native country; he opened a book which
then was his constant companion, the Confessions of St. Augustine, and his eye fell on the
passage in the tenth chapter, “and men go forth, and admire lofty mountains and
broad seas and roaring torrents and the ocean and the course of the stars, and
forget their own selves while doing so.” His brother, to whom he read these
words, could not understand why he closed the book and said no more."
More of Burkhardt' piece on Petrarch here.
http://dld.bz/fptke
and don't
forget The Basic History Library (free): ------------->
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