ABSTRACT
The struggles of the papacy with the various secular powers of Europe in the thirteenth century, which gave the period its political character, were accompanied by significant and profoundly contrasting developments in intellectual life in France and Italy. The political situation in Italy changed dramatically with the break-up of the Hohenstaufen empire of Frederick II during the Great Interregnum of 1250-73 that followed his death. Petrarch himself did not set out a coherent theory of education, much less a pedagogy, to accompany his ambitious ideas. Despite the fact that Boccaccio was a contemporary of Petrarch, and was personally acquainted with him, in many respects he can be considered almost as a successor. By the end of the fourteenth century the revival of classical learning in Italy was well established, both in Latin and Greek. Trecento is used to describe the cultural developments in Italy in the fourteenth century.
