Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), known in English-speaking countries as Petrarch, is often considered the father both of Italian Humanism and of the European tradition of lyric poetry. Petrarch was born in Arezzo, Italy. His family moved to Avignon, France, in 1312, and there he received his early education. He studied at Montpellier, France, and in Bologna, Italy, but his real interest lay with literature. After his father died in 1326, Petrarch returned to Avignon and worked for an influential cardinal, a high official of the Catholic Church. In 1327, in the Church of St. Clare in Avignon, he met the woman named Laura for whom he developed a deep, unrequited love that was to inspire his great vernacular Italian sonnets and other poems. In subsequent years, Petrarch made a great name for himself as a classical scholar and vernacular poet. In 1340, he was invited by both Paris and Rome to be crowned as poet laureate. In 1348, the plague claimed the lives of several of his friends and of his beloved Laura. During the later part of his life, he collected his poems about Laura into a book, the Canzoniere, divided into works written during Laura's life and after her death. Today, Petrarch is remembered for two reasons. First, he helped to revive interest in the literature of ancient Italy and so gave impetus to the movement that we know as Humanism. Second, his highly personal, highly musical vernacular verse gave to Europe the model for lyric poetry down to our own day. Such poetry deals with the intensely felt emotions of an individual speaker.