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Western Civilisation was in its pomp when Jacob Burckhardt
delivered his Judgements on History and Historians; European
Empires spanned the globe, while the modern age was being forged in
the nationalist revolutions of 1848. As a tutor to the young
Friedrich Nietzsche as well as one of the first historians to take
'culture' as his subject rather than the triumphs and travails of
kings and generals, Burckhardt was at the vanguard of this modern
sensibility. Ambitious in its scope, ranging from the days of
Ancient Egypt, through the Reformation to the time of Napoleon,
this is indeed a history of 'Western Civilization', written before
two monstrous world wars threw such a concept into disrepute.
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) is a work of
art history by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt. Recognized today
as the founder of modern art history and as one of the key thinkers
of the nineteenth century, Burckhardt changed not only the way we
think about the Renaissance in relation to European and world
history, but the value placed on art as a tool for understanding
historical developments. The Civilization of the Renaissance in
Italy begins with a section on the historical events which sparked
the Renaissance, focusing especially on the frequent military
conflicts which marred the era as well as on the constant political
upheavals undergone by such Italian regions and cities as Rome,
Venice, and Florence. Burckhardt then moves to a philosophical
discussion of the development of individuality in Italian culture,
arguing that the political circumstances of those living in the
Republics enabled such thinkers as Dante and Petrarch to create art
that corresponded with that newfound sense of individuality. The
third section discusses one of the key elements of Renaissance
culture: the revival of interest in the cultural products of the
ancient world, especially Greece and Rome. Part four focuses on the
prominence of discovery in Renaissance culture, for which
Burckhardt looks to the colonial expedition of Columbus, the growth
of the natural sciences, and the achievements of such poets and
writers as Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio in discovering new ways
to describe humanity and the human spirit. In the fifth section,
the importance of societal customs and festivals is discussed, and
in the sixth and final part, Burckhardt observes the profound
shifts undergone by religion and morality in Italy at the time. The
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is a thorough, dynamic
work of art history that not only changed the study of history at
universities around the world, but elevated the status of art in
understanding the process of cultural change. With a beautifully
designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition
of Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
is a classic of European art history reimagined for modern readers.
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) is a work of
art history by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt. Recognized today
as the founder of modern art history and as one of the key thinkers
of the nineteenth century, Burckhardt changed not only the way we
think about the Renaissance in relation to European and world
history, but the value placed on art as a tool for understanding
historical developments. The Civilization of the Renaissance in
Italy begins with a section on the historical events which sparked
the Renaissance, focusing especially on the frequent military
conflicts which marred the era as well as on the constant political
upheavals undergone by such Italian regions and cities as Rome,
Venice, and Florence. Burckhardt then moves to a philosophical
discussion of the development of individuality in Italian culture,
arguing that the political circumstances of those living in the
Republics enabled such thinkers as Dante and Petrarch to create art
that corresponded with that newfound sense of individuality. The
third section discusses one of the key elements of Renaissance
culture: the revival of interest in the cultural products of the
ancient world, especially Greece and Rome. Part four focuses on the
prominence of discovery in Renaissance culture, for which
Burckhardt looks to the colonial expedition of Columbus, the growth
of the natural sciences, and the achievements of such poets and
writers as Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio in discovering new ways
to describe humanity and the human spirit. In the fifth section,
the importance of societal customs and festivals is discussed, and
in the sixth and final part, Burckhardt observes the profound
shifts undergone by religion and morality in Italy at the time. The
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is a thorough, dynamic
work of art history that not only changed the study of history at
universities around the world, but elevated the status of art in
understanding the process of cultural change. With a beautifully
designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition
of Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
is a classic of European art history reimagined for modern readers.
Published in 1937: The author's work on the Renaissance in Italy is
too well known, not only to students of the period, but now a wider
circle of readers, for any introduction to be necessary.
Republished in 1949, Jacob Burckhardt's brilliant study, first
published in Germany in 1852, has survived all its critics and
presents today perhaps a more intelligible and a more valid picture
of events, their nexus, and their relevance than any later study.
This English version is apt to the moment. No epoch of remote
history can be so relevant to modern interests as the period of
transition between the ancient and the medieval world, when a
familiar order of things visibly died and was supplanted by a new.
Other transitions become apparent only in retrospect; that of the
age of Constantine, like our own, was patent to contemporaries. Old
institutions, in the sphere of culture as of government, had grown
senile; economic balances were altered; peoples hitherto on the
peripheries of civilization demanded attention, and a new and
revolutionary social doctrine with an enormous emotional appeal was
spread abroad by men with a religious zeal for a new and
authoritarian cosmopolitanism and with a religious certainty that
their end justified their means. For us, contemporary developments
have made the analogy inescapable, but Jacob Burckhardt's insight
led him to a singularly clear apprehension of the meaning of the
transition almost a century ago, and the analogy implicit in his
book is the more impressive as it was unpremeditated.
Published in 1937: The author's work on the Renaissance in Italy is
too well known, not only to students of the period, but now a wider
circle of readers, for any introduction to be necessary.
Republished in 1949, Jacob Burckhardt's brilliant study, first
published in Germany in 1852, has survived all its critics and
presents today perhaps a more intelligible and a more valid picture
of events, their nexus, and their relevance than any later study.
This English version is apt to the moment. No epoch of remote
history can be so relevant to modern interests as the period of
transition between the ancient and the medieval world, when a
familiar order of things visibly died and was supplanted by a new.
Other transitions become apparent only in retrospect; that of the
age of Constantine, like our own, was patent to contemporaries. Old
institutions, in the sphere of culture as of government, had grown
senile; economic balances were altered; peoples hitherto on the
peripheries of civilization demanded attention, and a new and
revolutionary social doctrine with an enormous emotional appeal was
spread abroad by men with a religious zeal for a new and
authoritarian cosmopolitanism and with a religious certainty that
their end justified their means. For us, contemporary developments
have made the analogy inescapable, but Jacob Burckhardt's insight
led him to a singularly clear apprehension of the meaning of the
transition almost a century ago, and the analogy implicit in his
book is the more impressive as it was unpremeditated.
For the first time in English, one of the greatest masterpieces of
historical writing: 'Every civilized library must have a copy.'
CHRISTOPHER STACE, Telegraph 'A wonderfully fat and vivid reminder
of the splendour and miseries of Hellenism...enlightened and
enlightening, a joy to read, delicious with anecdotes and a
manifest labour of love, candour and openmindedness.' FREDERIC
RAPHAEL, Sunday Times Jacob Burckhardt (1818-97) was one of the
greatest historians of classical and Renaissance art, architecture
and culture. Though he died over a hundred years ago, his superb
prose is as fresh and readable today as it was at the end of the
nineteenth century. The Greeks and Greek Civilization describes, in
glorious, elegant detail, the lives of the ancient Greeks and the
origins of their culture.The book has never appeared before in
English. Oswyn Murray, the book's editor, and his translator,
Sheila Stern, have been labouring for many years on the text and
now, finally, have ready an authoritative version which, in Oswyn
Murray's words, 'remains the best account of Greek civilization.'
'His changes in tone, the sudden plunge from the grandest to the
most minor themes, the zooming in and out from the broadest
panoramas to a particular carpet on a particular floor, the
massiveness of his project and the lightness with which he
accomplishes it, not to mention his vast knowledge, his clear
style, his precision and his general surefootedness, are what makes
Burckhardt great in a way that is not so different from the way
Shakespeare is great or Rembrandt or Beethoven. He created vast
spaces in history, heights and depths, enormous ranges of pitch and
timbre, sunny clearings in the midst of impenetrable gloom...Thanks
to the efforts of Oswyn Murray and Sheila Stern, a Great Blue Whale
is swimming for the first time in English waters. Tiddlers
everywhere should be pleased to accept the invitation to swim in
its posthumous wake.' JAMES DAVIDSON, London Review of Books
Western Civilisation was in its pomp when Jacob Burckhardt
delivered his Judgements on History and Historians; European
Empires spanned the globe, while the modern age was being forged in
the nationalist revolutions of 1848. As a tutor to the young
Friedrich Nietzsche as well as one of the first historians to take
'culture' as his subject rather than the triumphs and travails of
kings and generals, Burckhardt was at the vanguard of this modern
sensibility. Ambitious in its scope, ranging from the days of
Ancient Egypt, through the Reformation to the time of Napoleon,
this is indeed a history of 'Western Civilization', written before
two monstrous world wars threw such a concept into disrepute.
The Swiss scholar Jacob Burckhardt (1818-97) is well known as the author of The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, which has remained in print since its publication in 1860. He is far less well known for his pioneering studies in ancient Greek history, which were an important influence on his most celebrated student, Friedrich Nietzsche, and which shaped the modernist view of Greek civilization not as an expression of the heights of human reason, but as an irrational and often dangerous construct. Burckhardt believed that the ancient Greeks' myth-laden view of their own past, full of sociopathic heroes and tragic victims, was an expression of this state of unreason: "The wildest variations and contradictions," he writes, "were not found at all disturbing."
Even less disturbing to the Greeks, he continues, was the systematic violence—and even human sacrifice—that erupted when a city like Athens wished to extend its territory or when a leader wished to extend his power. That violence, Burckhardt holds, was a natural result of the ancient Greeks' pursuit of honor, which accrued by facing and defeating danger. One such danger was the mere act of standing out in any way whatever, which could net a would-be hero a charge of being impious—witness, Burckhardt notes, the fates of Socrates and his contemporary Alcibiades. Drawing from examples of mythology, tragedy, oratory, and comedy, Burckhardt touches on themes such as Greek society's contempt for women and its apparent readiness to embrace all sorts of antidemocratic demagoguery—in the person, for instance, of the famed hero Lysander, who "combines depravity with natural gifts in a way that was typically Spartan and yet generally Greek." Burckhardt's deconstruction of classical history, ably edited by Oxford historian Oswyn Murray, reads as if it were written in our own time.
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