The Italian scholar Petrarch spent a significant period of time in southeastern France as a boy and a young man.  In 1311, when he was seven years old, he moved to Avignon with his family; in 1312, he moved to the small town of Carpentras and remained there until 1316.  During other periods of his life from the 1330s to the 1350s, he chose to reside in what is now the French department of Vaucluse.