ABSTRACT
Irrespective of previous attempts by Renaissance scholars to claim Petrarch’s report about his climb of Mont Ventoux contained in a letter included in his Familiares as a signal document of the early Renaissance, with the individual finally exploring the world for its own sake, this chapter argues that Petrarch pursued the same effort as his predecessors and contemporaries in employing trailing as a critical aspect of epistemology, whether we call this medieval or early modern. Climbing a mountain always represents a great effort, and Petrarch translates this into a metaphor of all of human life. When the trail becomes difficult and steep, Petrarch turns downwards and looks for the easy path. Instead of accepting the true challenges, he fails for a long time, until he realizes that the true trail goes upwards. But once having reached the top, having scanned the world below him, Petrarch’s attention returns to his spiritual uplifting as facilitated by his reading of Augustine’s Confessiones. The climb down thus becomes a symbol of the poet’s return to his own inner self.
