Petrarch's other passion was writing. His first pieces were poems that he composed after the death of his mother. He would go on to write sonnets, letters, histories and more. Petrarch's writing was greatly admired during his lifetime, and he was crowned Rome's poet laureate in 1341. The work Petrarch held in highest regard was his Latin composition Africa<span>, an epic poem about the Second Punic War. His vernacular poems achieved greater renown, however, and would later be used to help create the modern Italian language.</span>
A main reason that the age of revolutions initially failed to achieve widespread change in some nations of Europe was because many of these failed revolutions took place in the "backyards" of their mother countries--meaning that they were easily taken down with military power.
