In the first part of the article, the author discusses the didactic work Deremediis utriusque fortune, in which Petrach’s Augustine-inspired pessimismfinds its extreme expression. In the second part, the article points out that inBohemia the reception of Petrarch as a moralist was fundamentally differentfrom the usual image of him as a humanist. It discusses the appeal thatPetrarch’s moral philosophy had for reform-minded figures like Řehoř Hrubýz Jelení (c. 1460—1514) and Mikuláš Konáč z Hodiškova (c. 1480—1546), andanalyzes Jan Češka’s Řeči a naučení hlubokých mudrců (Words and teachingsof the great sages c. 1500), a florilegium based for the most part on Deremediis. On the basis of a comparison of Češka’s translations and paraphrasesof De remediis, the author concludes (in opposition to Josef Macek) that inČeška’s work Petrarch’s rigorous, inwardly oriented Augustinian concept ofVirtue is superseded by the essentially more open, concept of Reason orientedto this world, and that Petrarch’s pessimism is thus reinterpreted in the spiritof positive, confident proto-Reformation thinking.