the civilization of the renaissance in italy by jacob burckhardt

Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. A fascinating description of an era of cultural transition, this nineteenth-century masterpiece was to become the most influential interpretation of the Italian Renaissance, and anticipated ideas such as Nietzsche's concept of the 'Ubermensch' in its portrayal of an age of genius.įor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. In this landmark work he depicts the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice and Rome as providing the seeds of a new form of society, and traces the rise of the creative individual, from Dante to Michelangelo. Siegfried Giedion described Burckhardt's achievement in the following terms: 'The great discoverer of the age of the Renaissance, he first showed how a period should be treated in its entirety, with regard not only for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but for the social institutions of its daily life as well.' Burckhardt's best known work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).For nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, the Italian Renaissance was nothing less than the beginning of the modern world - a world in which flourishing individualism and the competition for fame radically transformed science, the arts, and politics.

He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history, albeit in a form very different from how cultural history is conceived and studied in academia today.

Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt was a historian of art and culture, and an influential figure in the historiography of each field. Siegfried Giedion described Burckhardt's achievement in the following terms: 'The great discoverer of the age of the Renaissance, he first showed how a period should be treated in its entirety, with regard not only for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but for the social institutions of its daily life as well.' Burckhardt's best known work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).

The civilization of the renaissance in italy by jacob burckhardt