Petrarch and the World of Fourteenth-Century Jurists: Crafting a Space for Humanism Available to Purchase

This article examines Petrarch's antijuridical criticism in light of the largely neglected humanist inclinations of fourteenth-century jurists. Without denying other components of Petrarch's antijuridical critique, this essay suggests that Petrarch's stance was primarily motivated by an effort to defend the professional status and the prerogatives of the emergent studia humanitatis against the all-encompassing tendencies and disciplinary transgressions of contemporary jurists. By putting Petrarch's abstract claims about the need to universalize humanist culture into perspective, this study allows for a better understanding not only of the humanist antijuridical tradition that inherited many of Petrarch's claims, but also of the process that led fourteenth- and fifteenth-century humanists to develop an awareness of their cultural program.