Theological Origins of Modernity

46 chapter two
Th e fi rst to face this question and attempt to answer it was Francesco
Petrarch (1304–74), who looked not to the city, God, or the cosmos for support
but into himself, fi nding an island of stability and hope not in citizenship
but in human individuality. Petrarch grew up in a world that was
shaped by the collapse of an idea of political and cultural order that had
sustained Europe for centuries. Although only forty years younger than
Dante, he was separated from him and the entire tradition stretching back
to Socrates by a gulf that is immediately evident at the beginning of his
autobiographical Familiar Letters:
I have spent all of my life, to this moment, in almost constant travel. . . .
I, begotten in exile, was born in exile, with so much labor undergone by
my mother, and with so much danger, that she was considered dead for a
long time not only by the midwives but by the doctors. Th us I experienced
danger even before being born and I approached the very threshold of life
under the auspices of death. . . . Since that time to the present I have had no
opportunity or only a very rare one to abide anywhere or catch my breath. 1
A man without a home, driven continuously about in the world, prey to
fortune, and surrounded by a perplexing multitude of human beings,
Petrarch struggled to fi nd some connection to others that would provide
stability in his life. In his earlier years, his friends seem to have played this
role. Unfortunately, friendship proved inadequate, for in 1348 the Black
Death arrived and “all these friends . . . in no time at all were destroyed
in almost one stroke.” 2 Th e consequences were awesome: “Th e year 1348
left us alone and helpless. . . . It subjected us to irreparable losses.” 3 In
the face of these diffi culties Petrarch neither turned to religion nor succumbed
to despair. “In fact, I have become stronger out of that very state
of despair. Aft er all, what can frighten someone who has struggled with
death so many times?” In the midst of these troubles, without a home, his
friends ripped away from him, he found a new way of life that gave him
such strength that he was convinced that “I shall never succumb to anything
further. ‘If the world slips into destruction, the crumbling ruins will
fi nd me fearless.’ ” 4 Beyond the community and beyond religion, amidst
war, collapse, and destruction, Petrarch discovered a new foundation for
human life, a foundation for what was to become the modern age.
Th is chapter examines the very beginnings of modernity in Petrarch’s
conception of individuality. Petrarch’s thought is a response to the crisis
of late medieval civilization. He fi nds an answer to this crisis in a vision
of man as a fi nite individual capable of self-mastery and self-perfection.
However, for Petrarch such self-mastery is only possible outside of political