Editing Dark Ages (historiography) (section)

===Petrarch===
[[File:Tommaso.Laureti Triumph.of.Christianity.jpg|thumb|''Triumph of Christianity'' by [[Tommaso Laureti]] (1530&ndash;1602), ceiling painting in the [[Raphael Rooms#Sala di Costantino|Sala di Constantino]], [[Vatican City|Vatican Palace]]. Images like this one celebrate the triumph of Christianity over the [[paganism]] of Antiquity.]]

The idea of a Dark Age originated with the [[History of Tuscany|Tuscan]] scholar [[Petrarch]] in the 1330s.<ref name="Franklin"/><ref name=mommsen>{{cite journal | last = Mommsen | first = Theodore E.| author-link =Theodor Ernst Mommsen | title = Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages' | journal = [[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]] | volume = 17 | issue = 2 | pages = 226–242 | publisher = [[Medieval Academy of America]] | location = Cambridge MA | year = 1942 | jstor = 2856364| doi = 10.2307/2856364| s2cid = 161360211}}</ref> Writing of the past, he said: "Amidst the errors there shone forth men of genius; no less keen were their eyes, although they were ''surrounded by darkness'' and dense gloom".<ref>[[Petrarch]] (1367). ''Apologia cuiusdam anonymi Galli calumnias'' (''Defence against the calumnies of an anonymous Frenchman''), in Petrarch, ''Opera Omnia'', Basel, 1554, p. 1195. This quotation comes from the English translation of Mommsen's article, where the source is given in a footnote. Cf. also Marsh, D, ed., (2003), ''Invectives'', Harvard University Press, p. 457.</ref> Christian writers, including Petrarch himself,<ref name=mommsen/> had long used traditional [[metaphor]]s of '[[light versus darkness]]' to describe '[[Good and evil|good versus evil]]'. Petrarch was the first to give the metaphor [[secularity|secular]] meaning by reversing its application. He now saw [[classical antiquity]], so long considered a 'dark' age for its lack of Christianity, in the 'light' of its cultural achievements, while Petrarch's own time, allegedly lacking such cultural achievements, was seen as the age of darkness.<ref name=mommsen/>

From his perspective on the Italian peninsula, Petrarch saw the [[Roman period]] and classical antiquity as an expression of greatness.<ref name=mommsen/> He spent much of his time traveling through Europe, rediscovering and republishing classic [[Latin]] and [[Greek language|Greek]] texts. He wanted to restore the Latin language to its former purity. [[Renaissance humanists]] saw the preceding 900 years as a time of stagnation, with history unfolding not along the religious outline of [[Augustine of Hippo|Saint Augustine]]'s [[Six Ages of the World]], but in ''cultural'' (or secular) terms through progressive development of [[classical idealism|classical ideals]], [[classical Literature|literature]], and [[classical art|art]].

Petrarch wrote that history had two periods: the classic period of [[Ancient Greece|Greeks]] and [[Ancient Rome|Romans]], followed by a time of darkness in which he saw himself living. In around 1343, in the conclusion of his epic ''[[Africa (Petrarch)|Africa]]'', he wrote: "My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age. This sleep of forgetfulness will not last forever. When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance."<ref>[[Petrarch]] (1343). ''[[Africa (Petrarch)|Africa]]'', IX, 451-7 (ed. Festa, p. 278):<br>''... Michi degere vitam<br>Impositum varia rerum turbante procella.<br>At tibi fortassis, si – quod mens sperat et optat –<br>Es post me victura diu, meliora supersunt<br>Secula: non omnes veniet Letheus in annos<br>Iste sopor! Poterunt discussis forte tenebris<br>Ad purum priscumque iubar remeare nepotes.''<br>(This quotation and its English translation is from Mommsen's article, p. 240. The typographical error of ''inbar'' instead of ''iubar'' has been corrected.)</ref> In the 15th century, historians [[Leonardo Bruni]] and [[Flavio Biondo]] developed a three-tier outline of history. They used Petrarch's two ages, plus a modern, 'better age', which they believed the world had entered. Later, the term 'Middle Ages' – Latin ''media tempestas'' (1469) or ''medium aevum'' (1604), was used to describe the period of supposed decline.<ref name="Albrow">Albrow, Martin, ''The global age: state and society beyond modernity'' (1997), p. 205.</ref>