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0:34

It's April 26th, 1332 and

0:38

another remarkable event is about to

0:40

be uncovered by Aria,

0:42

Rebecca and Ali The

0:45

Retrospectors The

0:48

Italian Renaissance was a time of unprecedented

0:50

intellectual exploration an era when people were

0:52

asking themselves questions like Does the sun

0:54

really revolve around the earth? What if

0:56

we could print books on a press?

0:58

And apparently what's at the top of

1:00

that big hill? Because it was today

1:02

in history in 1336 that the Italian

1:04

poet Petrarch hiked up Mont Ventoux in

1:06

Provence supposedly becoming the first person to

1:08

climb a mountain for pleasure And what

1:11

he wrote in his much celebrated letter

1:13

to his former confessor Diennigi, de Borgos

1:15

and Sepulchro was Today I made the

1:17

ascent of the highest mountain in the

1:19

region which is not improperly called Ventosum

1:21

Ventosum meaning windy My only motive was

1:23

the wish to see what so great

1:25

an elevation had to offer So it

1:27

really was his intention just to climb

1:30

to the top of this thing and

1:32

look out from the top Yes, although

1:35

you say that, you know, this

1:37

letter was celebrated and it was

1:39

but really Petrarch's thoughts on his

1:41

own expedition on this day didn't

1:43

become celebrated, not properly, for centuries

1:46

It was when it was rediscovered

1:48

by the Romantic poets centuries later

1:51

who also liked to write

1:53

a metaphor about a mountain because

1:55

people have long enjoyed comparing climbing

1:57

mountains to enlightenment years before Miley

1:59

Cyrus that they thought,

2:01

ah, here's someone who climbed a

2:03

mountain and thought spiritual things, after

2:06

having done it just for fun, centuries before

2:08

we did. So then it became this thing

2:10

where people said for a long time, this

2:12

was the moment that mankind discovered the modern

2:15

thrill of climbing a mountain, as you say,

2:17

just because he wanted to. But that doesn't

2:19

necessarily mean that Petruk

2:21

thought that no one had climbed a mountain

2:23

before. Yes. Yeah,

2:25

in fact, in his letter, Petruk describes how

2:28

on their ascent, they met an elderly shepherd

2:30

who said he had journeyed to the peak

2:32

of the mountain 50 years earlier, and kind

2:34

of warned them, you know, don't bother, it's

2:37

really dangerous, but he carried on anyway. We

2:39

now have a wealth of evidence, and we'll

2:41

get into this later, that people have pretty

2:43

much always climbed mountains. But there was in

2:45

post-Renaissance generations this idea that this was an

2:48

era where people were moving from that kind

2:50

of medievalist mindset, where they were only concerned

2:52

about fulfilling their religious obligations, social obligations, and

2:54

basically getting what they needed to survive,

2:57

to a more elevated mentality that was

2:59

kind of guided by curiosity and, you

3:01

know, that personal spirit of inquiry as

3:03

well. People were sort of breaking out of the,

3:05

as they saw it, you know, the Catholic Church's

3:07

restrictions on what people said and thought and kind

3:10

of making their own thing to do. And

3:12

there was also an idea that people in

3:14

the past were scared of mountains, you know,

3:17

that they were superstitious, that they were intellectually

3:19

uncurious, and they were just living flat on

3:21

the ground. But as we'll see later, that

3:23

was definitely not the case. Well,

3:26

once he reaches the summit,

3:28

Petrucc really rhapsodised about, quote,

3:31

the effect of the great sweep of

3:33

the view spread out before me. And

3:35

he gazes over to the east with

3:37

what he calls an irrepressible longing towards

3:39

his own native Italy. And

3:41

he then starts to reflect on the

3:43

past decade of the futility of his

3:46

earthly love for Laura, the woman with

3:48

whom he was famously obsessed in the

3:50

subject of his love lyrics written over

3:52

a period of about 20 years. Laura

3:55

herself has traditionally been identified as

3:58

Laura de Noves de Avignon. who

4:01

was a married woman and a mother,

4:03

but there are possible other candidates. But

4:05

regardless, it was, it sort of became

4:07

this idea of a, an

4:09

unrequited love in both the sort

4:11

of positive and negative characteristics that

4:13

go with that. Yeah. Petruch

4:15

basically wrote You're Beautiful by James Blunt,

4:17

didn't he? Right. You know, a hundred

4:20

views at a time. Yeah, but he wrote it a lot

4:22

of times. Yeah. So not just a

4:24

one-hit wonder. Yeah. So he was

4:26

23. He started perving on a woman he saw in church and

4:28

he wrote a poem about it. He sort of inadvertently

4:30

invented the form of the solace. Yeah.

4:33

But I mean, the thing that then he

4:35

goes on to do from this point of

4:37

having questioned his love for Laura is that

4:39

he then sits down, opens up Augustine's Confessions.

4:42

And this is the point at which it

4:44

starts to feel as though this whole story

4:46

is maybe a little bit more poetic

4:49

and a little bit less literal because

4:51

the passage that he chances upon as

4:53

he throws this book open reads, and

4:55

men go about to wonder at the

4:57

height of the mountains and the mighty

4:59

waves of the sea and the wide

5:01

sweeps of rivers and the circuit of the

5:04

ocean and the revolutions of the stars. But

5:06

themselves, they consider not just that, you know,

5:08

just at random. That was what he happened

5:10

upon. Yeah. I

5:12

mean, not to spoil anything, but it

5:15

has been suggested that Petruch maybe did

5:17

not actually climb Mont Ventoux at all,

5:19

that it was more of an allegory,

5:21

you know, a premise for his very

5:23

lengthy and philosophical account of the journey,

5:25

which really does ring all

5:27

of the metaphorical meaning out of the

5:29

expedition, as is humanly possible. This

5:32

is very on the nose passage about

5:34

how every time two paths emerge, his

5:36

brother Gerardo chooses to take the steep

5:38

boat directory while Petruch himself elects to

5:41

look for a longer but easier path,

5:43

which ultimately sets him fruitlessly wandering, leaving him

5:45

even more tired than he was at the

5:47

beginning. And he has to take the steep

5:49

route anyway. But also in

5:52

1332, who takes a book up a

5:54

mountain? You know what I mean?

5:56

Books are quite valuable things. And why

5:58

that one? You know? like of

6:00

course it's an allegory. Because

6:03

there's a page that's about climbing mountains and I

6:05

turn the corners out and I'm gonna throw it

6:08

open at chance at the top. I'm gonna just feel

6:10

sorry for all the servants that were helping them you know

6:12

because it was about his brother and a bunch of other

6:14

guys. It's like can you imagine all of them just thinking

6:16

what are we doing here on the mountain again and why

6:18

are we carrying this book after this? They're like oh we're

6:21

so superstitious and intellectually uncurious why are you

6:23

making us do this? Well

6:26

according to the French historian Pierre

6:28

Coursel and the Italian writer Giuseppe

6:31

Bilanovic the letter is

6:33

essentially a fabrication that was crafted

6:35

about 15 years after its alleged

6:37

date and nearly a decade after

6:40

even like the death of its

6:42

intended recipient, Deliji, who

6:44

he'd been sending it to apparently.

6:46

The English professor Lyle Asher says

6:49

that the mountain ascent was basically

6:51

a symbolic narrative of writing the

6:53

letter itself which I thought wow that

6:56

is meta that he sat down to

6:58

write a letter that was all

7:00

about how hard it is to write a letter

7:02

and the allegory was the mountain but

7:05

anyway that's one theory. But it's also about spirituality

7:07

isn't it and then that rings true doesn't it

7:09

that maybe he did climb the mountain but then

7:11

spent 15 years kind of percolating it in his

7:13

head as sort of poetry. He

7:15

was a poet after all and then wrote

7:17

this like he did many times in his

7:19

poetry wrote this mountain metaphor in this letter

7:22

in which you know the climax actually

7:24

isn't just about kind of look how

7:26

small we are and look how amazing

7:28

the world is but also look

7:31

at what God sees. There's this bit

7:33

where he says clouds were beneath me and

7:35

suddenly what I heard and read about

7:37

Athos and Olympus became less incredible

7:39

to me when I looked out from this mountain

7:42

of lesser fame. Well this mountain of lesser fame

7:45

is the mountain from his neck of the woods

7:47

it's the highest point in Provence. You

7:49

know it's much closer to the center of

7:51

Catholicism isn't it than Athos

7:53

and Olympus. So I suppose what

7:56

he's sort of saying as well

7:59

is something about Christianity Is he

8:01

saying that you know our spirituality is just

8:03

as good as the great spirituality you just

8:05

need Climb the mountain to say it. Is

8:07

important that the idea that the renaissance of

8:09

her religion giving way to him this and

8:11

is the simplest the nonetheless have pets are

8:13

explicitly links the struggle of the climb with

8:15

striving for closeness to god. He writes if

8:17

they're ready to ensure so much slaton labour

8:20

in order that we may bring our bodies

8:22

a little narrow has and how can a

8:24

soul struggling toward God up the steps of

8:26

human pride and human destiny see any cross

8:28

or prison or sting of fourteen said him.

8:30

The certainly was a spiritual experience and explicitly

8:32

it's Christian one as Wow sports we have.

8:34

That is that although this is one moment

8:36

like Pet Rock is. Credited with helping to

8:38

kick start the Renaissance. It's not even

8:40

the only way he is credited with

8:42

looks in the Renaissance scenario on his

8:44

travels is always traveling around. He rescued

8:46

loads of lost or forgotten manuscript by

8:48

Ancient Roman a great authors, and it

8:50

was the distribution of this canon of

8:52

rediscovered text that that really did stop

8:54

the intellectual movement that became known as

8:56

the Renaissance. Later. Okay, so let's go

8:59

back to the point that I

9:01

was making earlier than which is

9:03

the first would five hundred years.

9:05

This letter and is episodes takes

9:07

on a different meanings. A mess

9:09

because mountaineering have literally taken on

9:11

a different meaning. The word mountaineer

9:13

existed in the early enlightenment and

9:15

it meant people who lived on

9:17

a mountain and harvested animals there

9:19

and they were described as mezni

9:22

of peasants. But then later and

9:24

when mountaineering as a hobby became

9:26

a leisure activity, those people. Appropriated

9:28

the word for themselves. Out thinnest was

9:30

another one. there's an alpha. This movement

9:32

and mountain climbing in and of itself

9:34

had begun to be seen in a

9:36

mainstream, genteel way as a thing that

9:38

people could do It doesn't mean they

9:40

didn't do it before, but those people

9:42

wanted to believe they were pioneers said

9:45

they both looked back through history to

9:47

say who else has climbed a mountain

9:49

just for fun and found Petrov so

9:51

they could kind of bring him into

9:53

their movements whilst also saying and we

9:55

the people who can't have invented this

9:57

guy's. Yeah, mine's you. The romances jumped.

10:00

of it a little bit. Every year these

10:02

days there are amateur races to climb Vontu

10:04

as quickly and often as possible in 24

10:06

hours. On the 16th of May in 2006,

10:08

Jean Pascal Roux from

10:13

Bedouin broke the record of climbs in

10:15

24 hours with 11 climbs.

10:17

There's no romance in going up and

10:19

down a single mountain 11 times in

10:21

a row. Passing his copy of Augustine's

10:23

confession was about it. And

10:27

so another week of retrospecting ends.

10:29

But next week begins a day

10:31

early at Club Retrospectors. Join

10:34

us now to get an

10:36

exclusive episode every Sunday on

10:39

patreon.com/retrospectors. Want

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