One of Petrarch's legacies was his belief that the recovery and study of the works of antiquity could restore virtue, culture, and social order. ... His imitation of Virgil's Aeneid shows the degree to which he relied on Classical literature as a source and guide. ... Literary historian Eugenio Donadoni states that Petrarch was "a precursor of the humanists of the fifteenth century for whom the literature of antiquity was a cult" (Donadoni, 97). ... Based on his studies of Cicero, Petrarch believed that there had to be more to virtue than religion. ...

• Word Count: 2254
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

The Roman poet Virgil, who guides Dante through hell, acts as the symbol of reason and studies the varieties of human sin (Sayre 441). ... Alighieri opted to write Inferno as vernacular literature in order to address and apply its message of conflicting moralities to a wider audience, of and from medieval Italy, and to the world today. ...

• Word Count: 1365
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School