Plenty of information on JSTOR, but this is a good start: Mommsen, Theodore E. “Petrarch’s Conception of the ‘Dark Ages.’” Speculum 17, no. 2 (1942): 226–42.
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Ok got it. This is great and confirms my view that the simplistic ‘dark ages’ is very much misattributed to Petrarch.
aug 28, 2025, 10:50 am • 1 0 • view
Not so fast! My fault for only skimming the first few pages of that article (I had to rush off to a meeting). Yes early on Petrarch still uses the original Christian metaphor where JC = light. But after becoming poet laureate and his first visits to Rome ...
aug 28, 2025, 1:47 pm • 1 0 • view