The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy explained

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
Title Orig:	Die Cultur  der Renaissance in Italien
Translator:	S. G. C. Middlemore
Author:	Jacob Burckhardt
Country:	Switzerland
Language:	German
Publisher:	Schweighauser'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung
Notes:	Kultur in modern German.

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (de|Die Cultur<!--[sic]--> der Renaissance in Italien) is an 1860 work on the Italian Renaissance by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt. Together with his History of the Renaissance in Italy (Die Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien; 1867) it is counted among the classics of Renaissance historiography. An English translation was produced by S.G.C. Middlemore in two volumes, London 1878.

Content

According to Denys Hay:

Burckhardt 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.^[1]

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.

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is divided into six parts:

1. Part One: The State as a Work of Art
2. Part Two: The Development of the Individual
3. Part Three: The Revival of Antiquity
4. Part Four: The Discovery of the World and of Man
5. Part Five: Society and Festivals
6. Part Six: Morality and Religion

Editions

• 1878. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.
• 1990. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Penguin Classics.

See also

• The Autumn of the Middle Ages
• A Distant Mirror

Further reading

• Baron, Hans. "Burckhardt's 'Civilization of the Renaissance' a Century after its Publication." Renaissance News 13.3 (1960): 207-222 online.
• Book: Danson Brown . Richard . From Burckhardt to Greenblatt: New Historicisms and Old. Whitlock. Keith. The Renaissance in Europe: A Reader. 2000. Yale University Press in association with The OpenUniversity. New Haven. 9780300082234. 4 - 11.
• Ferguson, Wallace K. The Renaissance and Historical Thought (1948), pp. 179–192 online
• Garner, Roberta. "Jacob Burckhardt as a Theorist of Modernity: Reading The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy." Sociological Theory (1990): 48-57 online also online at JSTOR
• News: Geddes. Dan. "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" by Jacob Burckhardt. 15 September 2016. The Satirist. 11 November 2000.
• Hay, Denys. "Burckhardt's Renaissance: 1860-1960." History Today (Jan. 1960), volume 10, issue 1, pp. 14-23.
• Book: Hinde. John R.. Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity. 2000. McGill-Queen's University Press. Montreal. 0773510273.
• News: Jones. Jonathan. Jacob Burckhardt: The Renaissance Revisited. 15 September 2016. The Guardian. 9 July 2010.

Notes and References

1. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/burckhardt%E2%80%99s-renaissance-1860-1960 Denys Hay, "Burckhardt's Renaissance: 1860-1960," History Today (Jan. 1960), vol. 10, issue 1, pp. 14-23.