In Petrarch (1304-74) we have the beginnings of the movement. He has been called "the first modern scholar and man of letters." Repudiating the other-worldliness ideal and the scholastic learning of his time, [4] possessed of a deep love for beauty in nature and art, a delight in travel, a desire for worldly fame, a strong historical sense, and the self-confidence to plan a great constructive work, he began the task of unearthing the monastic treasures to ascertain what the past had been and known and done. At twenty-nine he made his first great discovery, at Liège, in the form of two previously unknown orations of Cicero. Twelve years later, at Verona, he found half of one of the letters of Cicero which had been lost for ages. All his life he collected and copied manuscripts. His letter to a friend telling him of his difficulty in getting a work of Cicero copied, and his joy in doing the work himself (R. 125), is typical of his labors. He began the work of copying and comparing the old classical manuscripts, and from them reconstructing the past. He also wrote many sonnets, ballads, lyrics, and letters, all filled with a new modern classical spirit. He also constructed the first modern map of Italy. [Illustration: FIG. 69. BOCCACCIO (1313-75) "The Father of Italian Prose"] Through Boccaccio, whom he first met in 1350, Petrarch's work was made known in Florence, then the wealthiest and most artistic and literary city in the world, [5] and there the new knowledge and method were warmly received. Boccaccio equaled Petrarch in his passion for the ancient writers, hunting for them wherever he thought they might be found. One of his pupils has left us a melancholy picture of the library at Monte Cassino, as Boccaccio found it at the time of his visit (R. 126). He wrote a book of popular tales and romances, filled with the modern spirit, which made him the father of Italian prose as Dante was of Italian poetry; prepared the first dictionaries of classical geography and Greek mythology; and was the first western scholar to learn Greek. "In the dim light of learning's dawn they stand, Flushed with the first glimpses of a long-lost land."