De viris illustribus (English: On Illustrious Men) is an unfinished collection of biographies, written in Latin, by the 14th-century Italian author Francesco Petrarca. These biographies are a set of Lives similar in idea to Plutarch's Parallel Lives. The works were unfinished. However he was famous enough for these and other works to receive two invitations to be crowned poet laureate. He received these invitations on exactly the same day, April 8, 1341, one being from the Paris University and the other from the Roman Senate.[1] He accepted the Roman invitation.[2]
It is composed of two books:
There is as yet no English translation.[citation needed] Harvard University has it under contract to appear in the I Tatti Renaissance Library sometime in the future.