Francesco Petrarca was a pioneering Italian scholar, famed as the Renaissances first poet laureate and the father of Humanism.
Mikhail Lermontov was a Russian Romantic writer and poet, renowned for his influential works such as 'A Hero of Our Time' and his untimely death in a duel.
Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the literary movement known as the Generation of '98.
Émile Zola was a prominent French novelist, critic, and political activist, renowned for his naturalistic style and social reformist ideals.