The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: An Essay

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Phaidon, 1981 - History - 462 pages
Published in 1860, Burckhardt' s great work redefined our sense of the European past, wholly reinterpreting what has since been known simply as the Italian Renaissance. With unsurpassed erudition, Burckhardt illuminates a world of artistic and cultural ferment, innovation, and discovery; of revived humanism; of fierce tensions between church and empire; and of the birth of both the modern state and the modern individual. "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" remains the single most important and influential account of this crucial moment in the history of the West.

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Contents

THE STATE AS A WORK OF
1
DESPOTS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
9
THE HUMANISTS
11
Copyright

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About the author (1981)

Jacob Burckhardt was born in Basel, Switzerland on May 25, 1818. He received a degree in theology in 1839 and then attended the University of Berlin to study history. He taught at the University of Basel from 1843 to 1855, then at ETH, the engineering school in Zurich. In 1858, he returned to Basel to assume the professorship he held until his 1893 retirement. He was a historian of art and culture, and is considered one of the founding fathers of art history and one of the original creators of cultural history. His first book, Die Kunstwerke der belgischen Städte, was published in 1842. His best known works are The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy and The History of the Renaissance in Italy. His other works include The Age of Constantine the Great, Judgments on History and Historians, and The Greeks and Greek Civilization. He died on August 8, 1897.

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