In northern Italy laymen interested in literature, and active members of the notarial or judicial profession, already in the thirteenth century discovered copies of rare or forgotten authors from old ecclesiastical libraries and used them in their works. Thus Albertanus of Brescia (†c. 1248) copied from a carolingian codex of the letters of Seneca which he provided with marginal comments and sketches. The Paduan scholars Lovato dei Lovati (1241—1309), Geremia di Montagnone († 1321) and Iohannes de Matociis, mansionarius of the cathedral at Verona, were lucky to make genuine discoveries. Amongst these were Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Varro De re rustica, the Scriptores historiae Augustae, and letters of Cicero; treasures of the Verona cathedral library which Rather had seen in the tenth century were rediscovered. For Lovato a second source was the library of Pomposa; the best manuscript of Seneca's tragedies that he used was written there in the eleventh century.

The effect of these discoveries could have remained limited for a long time to local literature and their use in florilegia, if Petrarch had not incorporated them in the comprehensive picture of Roman antiquity which from his youth he had sought to recover. In the course of his efforts to acquire newer and better texts external circumstances came to his assistance; through his sojourn at the curia in Avignon he was able to establish valuable contacts.