According to Petrarch, the essential qualification for a writer was an appreciation of classical Greek and Roman authors, such as Cicero. Petrarch is considered by many to be the father of the Italian Renaissance. The interest in classical civilizations and Greco-Roman culture reignited a passion for learning and the arts after the Middle Ages. The significance that Petrarch placed on the individual in literature, art, music, poetry, and rhetoric became known as humanism. Today, these subjects are the basis for a classical education in the humanities.