Arts and Letters: The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Paperback)

from stillatim

Well, I guess that's what old history is like. Burckhardt piles up his anecdotes and, true to his word, gives you his own picture of the Italian Renaissance. Don't go looking for a narrative of events, or precise information. It's all allusion and generalities. That's not necessarily a bad thing,...

from charlie68

I found this hard sledding most of the time. A layered look of the different elements that contributed to the Renaissance in Florence and elsewhere in Italy. Like describing a beautiful painting in prose, while factually true, it is probably better to just look at it. On the other Mr. Burckhardt ...

from Smiley

Yes, 150 years of scholarship have passed this by. Yes, the Middle Ages were more subtle than Burckhardt claims. Yes, he made a number of dubious generalizations about the Italian character, but remember this is an essay. As such, it is a good place to start for a study of the Renaissance. Will p...

from MarkBeronte

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. In this landmark work he depict...

from aitastaes

This authoritative study by a distinguished scholar presents a brilliant panorama of Italian Renaissance life, explaining how and why the period constituted a cultural revolution. Author Jacob Burckhardt chronicles the transition from the medieval concept of society as a conglomeration of classes...