Otium
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Otium is a Latin abstract term which has a variety of meanings, including leisure time for "self-realization activities" such as eating, playing, relaxing, contemplation, and academic endeavors. It so
Visitors to Los Angeles' Getty Villa, modeled after the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, get a glimpse of otium as experienced at an ancient Roman villa.
Epicurus
Cicero busy at work
A modern reconstruction of a Roman villa
Petrarch
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Francis Petrarch was an Italian scholar and poet of the early Italian Renaissance, as well as one of the earliest Renaissance humanists.
Otium
…philosophy had two poles of ambitions – one to be a worthy Christian (vacation – negotium) and the other to be a worthy friend of God (devotion – otium). Petrarch, 14th-century poet and Renaissance humanist, discusses otium in his De vita solitaria as it relates to a human life of simple habits and self-restraint…
17th century portrait, Anonymous
Contemporary Portrait by Altichiero, c. 1370–1380
Summit of Mont Ventoux
Petrarch's Arquà house near Padua where he retired to spend his last years