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====His impact on the literature of the Renaissance====

While Petrarch wrote in both Latin and Italian it is arguably his works and especially his poetry in his native tongue that was most influential. Vernacular poetry had begun to flourish in the 13th and 14th century, and the works of Dante and the Sicilian School are still considered to be masterpieces of European literature.<ref> Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, (London, Penguin Books, 1990), p 117</ref> Dante, one of the world’s greatest poets, was a friend of Petrarch’s father. The writer had a major impact on the development of poetry in the Renaissance. Petrarch is often credited as the inventor of the sonnet, one of the most popular poetic forms in the western tradition. This is a fourteen-line poem in the metre known as iambic pentameter. However, he really only perfected the form and he introduced innovations that allowed poets to use language in a very expressive way.