Ascent of Mont Ventoux

Mount Ventoux

Birth of Alpinism is the start of the concept of modern day mountain climbing for the sport. Francesco Petrarch is regarded as the "Father of Alpinism"because of his ascent of Mont Ventoux. This is a 6,200-foot peak near Petrarch's home in Carpentras, France. A century later, a chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross was built on the top of the mountain. Today there is a steep road to the top of Mount Ventoux that is sometimes painfully incorporated into the Tour de France. Petrarch then was about 30 years of age. In a letter dated April 26 of that year by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch to Francesco Dionigi of Borgo San Sepolcro, a close friend of Petrarch's who was an Augustinian monk, he gives his account of the ascent. This letter reads in part:

"Today, I ascended the highest mountain in this region, which, not without cause, they call the Windy Peak. Nothing but the desire to see its conspicuous height was the reason for this undertaking."

InThe Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy Jacob Burkhardt describes Petrarch's ascent as the first time mountain climbing had been undertaken just for the sport of it.

Famous First Facts: International Edition credits the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch for writing of the first account of mountain climbing of importance,

"In April 1336 'to see what so great an elevation had to ofer,' he climbed the peak of Mount Ventoux in Provence, France, which is 6,203 feet high (1,909 meters). In a letter to the Augustinian monk Dionisio da Borgo San Sep, he later wrote: 'I stood like one dazed, I beheld the clouds under our feet, and what I had read of Athos and Olympus seemed less incredible as I witnessed the same things from a mountain less famous.'

Morris Bishop's book, Petrarch and His World, has a long chapter titled "The Ascent of Mont Ventoux" on the ascent Petrarch made to the top of Mont Ventoux. He says in this chapter,

"There is no clear record that anyone ever climbed a mountain for pleasure or mere curiosity from the time of King Philip of Macedonia to that of Petrarch. True, there is the case of King Peter of Aragon in the thirteenth century, who is said to have climbed Mount Canigou in the Pyrenees only to see what was on the summit. There he found a lake with monstrous hovering dragon, darkening the face of heaven with his breath. I think we may rule this out. We may rule out also the Alpine hermits, who sought their high retreats only to escape the world; and even Empedocles, who climbed Mount Etna in order to throw himself in the crater. Of course there were hunters, pursuing game to the upper fast-nesses, and shepherds seeking stray sheep or goats. However, Petrarch remains the first recorded Alpinist, the first to climb a mountain because it is there....Probably by design, for Petrarch had a great sense of anniversaries, he planned the ascent for April 26, 1336, exactly ten years from the day he and Gherardo had left Bologna."

The sport of mountaineering began in the Alps and is the reason for the term alpinist - meaning mountain climber.

Garrett Mattingly, a professor of European history at Columbia University, writes of Petrarch's ascent on Mount Ventoux in his book Renaissance Profiles (co-author John H. Plumb) and refers to him as being the Father of Alpinism.

In a University of Illinois paper of 1995 presented at the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference reference is made of Petrarch undertaking his climb of Mount Ventoux in April of 1336 after his reading of Livy's account of how Philip of Macedon climbed Mount Hermus and refers to Morris Bishop calling Petrarch as being "the first modern mountain-climber."

In an online article called "What is Mountaineering" they mention Petrarch as being known as the Father of Alpinism. In another article of December 2006 Quadrant Magazine says,

"One small episode in late medieval history is often singled out for special mention by historians, especially those with an interest in environmental history. This concerns the ascent of Mt Ventoux in France by Petrarch in 1336. Kenneth Clark, the noted art historian, supposes that Petrarch "was, as everybody knows, the first to climb a mountain for its own sake, and to enjoy the view from the top" (Landscape into Art, 1949). Many other historians quote this same event as providing the earliest example of the new humanistic, Renaissance spirit where nature was enjoyed for its own sake. I have come across this assertion in several history books and commentaries on the man-in-nature question."

Bruce MacLennan identifies in his article '"Some Remarks of Hillman on Renaissance Neoplatonism and Archetypal Psychology" the rediscovery of soul and its paradoxical nature in Petrarch's descent from Mont Ventoux:

James Hillman, one of the founders of modern archetypal psychology, which is a further development of Jung's ideas, has written about the roots of archetypal psychology in Renaissance Neoplatonism. He makes the argument that what enabled the Renaissance was not (as is commonly supposed) the rediscovery of humanity or nature, but the rediscovery of soul and its paradoxical nature, for while it is in us, we are also in it. That is, the imaginative world of the soul has an objective existence independent of our individual egos. He identifies Petrarch's descent from Mont Ventoux as the turning point because, as you will recall, it was there that he consulted Augustine's Confessions at random and, from what he read, realized that the world inside is just as large and real (just as given) as the world outside. In that passage Augustine described his imagination as "a large and boundless chamber," both a power of his and a part of his nature, yet beyond his comprehension. "Therefore is the mind too strait to contain itself."

A historian might put the ascent of Mount Ventoux by Petrarch and his comrades as a symbolic act marking the beginning of the new humanistic "Renaissance" spirit. The ascent of Mount Ventoux in the spring of 1336 by Petrarch correlates directly with humanism, personal growth and self-knowledge. The event of the birth of Alpinism is associated with discovery and enlightenment. Pretrarch has been associated with being the father of Italian Renaissance humanism. In the Renaissance the Greek ideal was taken up when in 1336 Petrarch wrote in The Ascent of Mount Ventoux:

"Yes, the life which we call blessed is to be sought for on a high eminence, and strait is the way that leads to it. Many, also, are the hills that lie between, and we must ascend, by a glorious stairway, from strength to strength. At the top is at once the end of our struggles and the goal for which we are bound. All wish to reach this goal, but, as Ovid says, ‘To wish is little; we must long with the utmost eagerness to gain our end.’” Niccolò Machiavelli perceived plainly that the struggle against necessity required that an individual have excellence and freedom as primary life purposes."

External Links

• Article talking about Petrarch's ascent of Mount Ventoux as the potential intellectual precursor of Columbus crossing the Atlantic.
• Petrarch's ascent has done much to shape and form historic and contemporary interest in the role of mountaineering and quests.
• Article of Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux influencing mountaineering to this day and its metaphorical significance.
• Article explaining Petrarch was the first person on April 26, 1336, to climb a mountain just because it was there.
• New York Times 1999 article by Michael Kimmelman talking about significance of Petrarch's ascent in 1336.
• Petrarch was the first self-consciously literate educated person to climb a mountain just for the vista.
• Article explaining that Petrarch with his brother went past a shepard on the ascent.
• Article analyzing the letter dated April 26, 1336, and philosophical significance.

Bibliography

• The Renaissance philosophy of man, translation selections by Ernst Cassirer; Paul Oskar Kristeller; John Herman Randall, University of Chicago Press, 1956 (OCLC: 71231567), 1971
• Petrarch Letter to Francesco Dionigi de'Roberti, 26 April 1336 (The Ascent of Mount Ventoux). Translated by Hans Nachod in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Ernst Cassirer et al., pages 36-46. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948. ISBN 0-226-09604-1
• Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998; ""Francesco Petrarca" - extensive article on his life with parts pertaining to his ascent of Mont Ventoux.
• Petrarca, Francesco, and John DePol. [Ad Dyonisium de Burgo Sancti Sepulcri ... de curis propriis. English] The ascent of Mount Ventoux: a letter from Petrarch. New York: Petrarch Press, 1989. 11 p., [1] leaf of plates. PQ4519.V44P413 1989

• Petrarca, Francesco. (Ad Dyonisium de Burgo Sancti Sepulcri ... de curis propriis. Italian & Latin) Francisci Petrarchae Ascensus Montis Ventosi. &, Une ascension au mont Ventoux. Editiones Officinae Bodoni. Verona: Officina Bodoni, 1965; 83 p. PQ4519.V44P416 1965

• Petrarca, Francesco. (Ad Dyonisium de Burgo Sancti Sepulcri ... de curis propriis. Italian & Latin) La lettera del Ventoso: Familiarium rerum libri IV, 1: testo a fronte. Di monte in monte, 1. Verbania: Tarara, 1996. 75 p. PQ4519.V44P416 1996

• Petrarca, Francesco, and Rodney John Lokaj. (Familiarum rerum libri. IV, 1. English & Latin] Petrarch's Ascent of Mount Ventoux: the Familiaris IV, I: new commented edition. Scriptores latini, 23. Roma: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 2006. 213 p.PQ4490.E2313 2005

• Petrarca. Wege der Forschung, Bd. 353. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, [Abt. Verlag], 1976. 463 p.PQ4504.P4

• Petrarch. Modern critical views. New York: Chelsea House, 1989. 175 p. PQ4505.P4 1989

• Cassirer, Ernst, ed, Paul Oskar Kristeller, joint ed., and John Herman Randall, joint ed.. The Renaissance philosophy of man. University of Chicago Press (1948), 404 p. B775.C32

• Cassirer, Ernst, ed, Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed., and John Herman Randall, joint edition. The Renaissance philosophy of man. Selections in translation. Phoenix, AZ., books, P1. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, (1967, c1948) 405 p.B780.M3C37 1967