The collection was prepared based on the materials of an international scientific conference (Moscow, October 2004) dedicated to the 700th anniversary of Fraichesko Petrarch, the great Italian poet and founder of Renaissance humanism. The articles of the collection consider the specifics of Petrarch's multifaceted work and his attitude to the cultural traditions of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Petrarch's innovative contribution to poetry and various humanitarian disciplines - philology, philosophy, history - is covered, the perception of his work by contemporaries is analyzed, as well as his assessment in subsequent centuries in the culture of Italy, Germany, and England.