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To will the good, one must first know it, and so there could be no true eloquence without wisdom. According to Leonardo Bruni, a leading humanist of the next generation, Petrarch “opened the way for us to show in what manner we might acquire learning.” Petrarch’s union of rhetoric and philosophy, modeled on the Classical ideal of eloquence, provided the humanists with an intellectual dignity and a moral ethos lacking to the medieval dictatores and classicists. It also pointed the way toward a program of studies—the studia humanitatis—by which the ideal might be achieved. As elaborated by Bruni, Pier Paolo ...(100 of 156573 words)