ABSTRACT
Because Petrarch lacked a stable base in Italy , any one of a number of cities could have become the centre of the cultura l movement he had instigated . There were group s of humanist s workin g i n close rappor t i n several cities - Venice, Padua, M i l a n and Florence - all of whic h were also producin g impressive work s of art at the time. Improbably , perhaps, it was 'big-business' Florence - or 'commercial and clothmaking ' Florence, as Petrarch more disparagingl y called the city (Epist.fam. 18.9.2) - whic h became the centre of a dynami c explosion of talent around 1400. Althoug h Florence had been called 'the home of gold ' by Pope Boniface VII I and had enjoyed the same civi c reviva l as other Italia n communes around 1300, its rulin g merchant elite di d not favour the new humanisti c values promoted by Petrarch. One merchant reacted angril y when his son said he wanted to study letters instead of followin g his father int o business; and another reacted wit h equal hostilit y to the avant-garde ideas that were being 'shouted out ' i n Florence's main square at the beginnin g of the fifteent h century [Doc. 8].
