The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is an 1860 work on the Italian Renaissance by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt. Together with his History of the Renaissance in Italy it is counted among the classics of Renaissance historiography. “Burkhardt sought to capture and define the spirit of the age in all its main manifestations. For him ‘’Kultur’’ was the whole picture: politics, manners, religion...the character that animated the particular activities of a people in a given epoch, and of which pictures, buildings, social and political habits, literature, are the concrete expressions. Its scholarly judgements are considered to have been largely justified by subsequent research according to historians including Desmond Seward and art historians such as Kenneth Clark.” (Denys Hay) The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is divided into six parts: Part One: The State as a Work of Art Part Two: The Development of the Individual Part Three: The Revival of Antiquity Part Four: The Discovery of the World and of Man