Ascent of Mont Ventoux: Difference between revisions
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The '''birthday of alpinism''' is a phrase used to refer to the date of April 26, 1336, when [[Francesco Petrarch]] climbed to the top of [[Mont Ventoux]], near his home in [[Carpentras]], France. The climb has become famous through its description in a letter written by Petrarch on the same day, known as the "Ascent of Mont Ventoux" (''Familiares'' 4.1).<ref>The Ascent of Mount Ventoux, a letter to Dionisio da Borgo San Sepolcro [http://history.hanover.edu/texts/petrarch/pet17.html - Familiar Letters]</ref> According to [[Morris Bishop]], Petrarch was the first person since [[classical antiquity]] to climb a mountain solely for pleasure, making him "the first recorded Alpinist."<ref> ''Petrarch and His World.'' by Morris Bishop; Bloomington, Indiana. Indiana University Press 1963, page 104. </ref> [[Jacob Burckhardt]] regarded the letter as an early example of the enjoyment of nature for its own sake,<ref>Burkhardt, Jacob. ''[http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/4-3.html The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy]'', translated by Middlemore.</ref> and the letter has also been seen as an early example of [[environmental writing]].<ref>Michael Kimmelman, [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9F03E2DC153EF935A35755C0A96F958260 "NOT Because it's There"], ''[[New York Times]], June 6, 1999.</ref> |
The '''birthday of alpinism''' is a phrase used to refer to the date of April 26, 1336, when [[Francesco Petrarch]] climbed to the top of [[Mont Ventoux]], near his home in [[Carpentras]], France. The climb has become famous through its description in a letter written by Petrarch on the same day, known as the "Ascent of Mont Ventoux" (''Familiares'' 4.1).<ref>The Ascent of Mount Ventoux, a letter to Dionisio da Borgo San Sepolcro [http://history.hanover.edu/texts/petrarch/pet17.html - Familiar Letters]</ref> According to [[Morris Bishop]], Petrarch was the first person since [[classical antiquity]] to climb a mountain solely for pleasure, making him "the first recorded Alpinist."<ref> ''Petrarch and His World.'' by Morris Bishop; Bloomington, Indiana. Indiana University Press 1963, page 104. </ref> [[Jacob Burckhardt]] regarded the letter as an early example of the enjoyment of nature for its own sake,<ref>Burkhardt, Jacob. ''[http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/4-3.html The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy]'', translated by Middlemore.</ref> and the letter has also been seen as an early example of [[environmental writing]].<ref>Michael Kimmelman, [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9F03E2DC153EF935A35755C0A96F958260 "NOT Because it's There"], ''[[New York Times]], June 6, 1999.</ref> |
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In Hans Nachod's translation of [[Ernst Cassirer]]'s "Ascent of Mount Ventoux" <ref>"Ascent of Mount Ventoux" in ''The Renaissance Philosophy of Man'' By Ernst Cassirer, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971; page 28</ref> it reads of Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux on April 26, 1336: |
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<blockquote> |
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"The colorful description of this enterprise has startled many readers who have been amazed<br /> |
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to see a man of his epoch venturing to climb a mountain for a view ''like a modern alpinist''." </blockquote> |
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Petrarch's letter says he ascended the mountain with his brother Gherardo, exactly ten years after they had left Bologna. They began at the village of [[Malaucène]] at the foot of the mountain. On the way up they met an old shepherd, who said he had climbed the mountain fifty years before, finding only rocks and brambles, and that no-one else had done it before or since. The brothers continued, Gherardo continuing up the ridge they were following, Petrarch ever trying for an easier, if longer, path.<ref>Petrarch himself applies this to his spiritual failures; this passage is one of the reasons the whole letter is regarded as allegory.</ref> At the top, they found a peak called ''Filiolus'', "Little Son"; Petrarch reflected on the past ten years, and the waste of his earthly love for Laura. They looked out from here, seeing the Rhone and the Cévennes, but not the Pyrenees (which are twenty miles away). At this point, Petrarch sat down and opened his Augustine, and immediately came upon "Men go to admire the high mountains and the great flood of the seas and the wide-rolling rivers and the ring of Ocean and the movement of the stars; and they forget themselves." Petrarch fell silent on this trip down, reflecting on the vanity of human wishes and the nobility of uncorrupted human thought. When they arrived back in the village in the middle of the night, Petrarch wrote this letter "hastily and extemporaneously" - or so he says. <ref>Bishop, pp.106-112</ref> |
Petrarch's letter says he ascended the mountain with his brother Gherardo, exactly ten years after they had left Bologna. They began at the village of [[Malaucène]] at the foot of the mountain. On the way up they met an old shepherd, who said he had climbed the mountain fifty years before, finding only rocks and brambles, and that no-one else had done it before or since. The brothers continued, Gherardo continuing up the ridge they were following, Petrarch ever trying for an easier, if longer, path.<ref>Petrarch himself applies this to his spiritual failures; this passage is one of the reasons the whole letter is regarded as allegory.</ref> At the top, they found a peak called ''Filiolus'', "Little Son"; Petrarch reflected on the past ten years, and the waste of his earthly love for Laura. They looked out from here, seeing the Rhone and the Cévennes, but not the Pyrenees (which are twenty miles away). At this point, Petrarch sat down and opened his Augustine, and immediately came upon "Men go to admire the high mountains and the great flood of the seas and the wide-rolling rivers and the ring of Ocean and the movement of the stars; and they forget themselves." Petrarch fell silent on this trip down, reflecting on the vanity of human wishes and the nobility of uncorrupted human thought. When they arrived back in the village in the middle of the night, Petrarch wrote this letter "hastily and extemporaneously" - or so he says. <ref>Bishop, pp.106-112</ref> |
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Revision as of 17:12, 6 July 2007
The birthday of alpinism is a phrase used to refer to the date of April 26, 1336, when Francesco Petrarch climbed to the top of Mont Ventoux, near his home in Carpentras, France. The climb has become famous through its description in a letter written by Petrarch on the same day, known as the "Ascent of Mont Ventoux" (Familiares 4.1).[1] According to Morris Bishop, Petrarch was the first person since classical antiquity to climb a mountain solely for pleasure, making him "the first recorded Alpinist."[2] Jacob Burckhardt regarded the letter as an early example of the enjoyment of nature for its own sake,[3] and the letter has also been seen as an early example of environmental writing.[4]
In Hans Nachod's translation of Ernst Cassirer's "Ascent of Mount Ventoux" [5] it reads of Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux on April 26, 1336:
"The colorful description of this enterprise has startled many readers who have been amazed
to see a man of his epoch venturing to climb a mountain for a view like a modern alpinist."
Petrarch's letter says he ascended the mountain with his brother Gherardo, exactly ten years after they had left Bologna. They began at the village of Malaucène at the foot of the mountain. On the way up they met an old shepherd, who said he had climbed the mountain fifty years before, finding only rocks and brambles, and that no-one else had done it before or since. The brothers continued, Gherardo continuing up the ridge they were following, Petrarch ever trying for an easier, if longer, path.[6] At the top, they found a peak called Filiolus, "Little Son"; Petrarch reflected on the past ten years, and the waste of his earthly love for Laura. They looked out from here, seeing the Rhone and the Cévennes, but not the Pyrenees (which are twenty miles away). At this point, Petrarch sat down and opened his Augustine, and immediately came upon "Men go to admire the high mountains and the great flood of the seas and the wide-rolling rivers and the ring of Ocean and the movement of the stars; and they forget themselves." Petrarch fell silent on this trip down, reflecting on the vanity of human wishes and the nobility of uncorrupted human thought. When they arrived back in the village in the middle of the night, Petrarch wrote this letter "hastily and extemporaneously" - or so he says. [7]
It is often claimed that Petrarch was the first to climb Mont Ventoux, but Jean Buridan had made an ascent earlier in the 14th cenury, and German writers of the 10th and 11th centuries left records of mountain ascents.[8] In fact, whether Petrarch himself climbed the mountain has been doubted by modern scholars; according to Pierre Courcelle and Giuseppe Billanovich, the letter is essentially a fiction written almost fifteen years after its supposed date, and almost a decade after the death of its addressee, Francesco Dionigi da Borgo San Sepulcro.[9]
Notes
- ^ The Ascent of Mount Ventoux, a letter to Dionisio da Borgo San Sepolcro - Familiar Letters
- ^ Petrarch and His World. by Morris Bishop; Bloomington, Indiana. Indiana University Press 1963, page 104.
- ^ Burkhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, translated by Middlemore.
- ^ Michael Kimmelman, "NOT Because it's There", New York Times, June 6, 1999.
- ^ "Ascent of Mount Ventoux" in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man By Ernst Cassirer, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971; page 28
- ^ Petrarch himself applies this to his spiritual failures; this passage is one of the reasons the whole letter is regarded as allegory.
- ^ Bishop, pp.106-112
- ^ Michael Kimmelman, "NOT Because it's There", New York Times, June 6, 1999. See also Lynn Thorndike, Renaissance or Prenaissance, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jan., 1943), pp. 69-74.
- ^ Billanovich, Giuseppe. "Petrarca e il Ventuso," Italia medioevale e umanisrica 9 (1966), pp. 389-401, and Courcelle, Pierre, "Petrarque entre Saint Augustin et les Augustins du XIVe siecle," Studipetrarcheschi 7 (1961), pp. 51-71; both cited by O'Connell, Michael, "Authority and the Truth of Experience in Petrarch's 'Ascent of Mount Ventoux,'" Philological Quarterly, 62 (1983), p.507.