The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Jacob Burckhardt (Author), Peter Murray (Editor), S. G. C. Middlemore (Translator), Peter Burke (Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 014044534X | ISBN-13: 978-0140445343 | Publication Date: December 4, 1990

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 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. 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The greatest single book on the history of Italy between 1350 and 1550.”—Hajo Holborn --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (December 4, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014044534X
• ISBN-13: 978-0140445343
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #193,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Man Who Invented the Renaissance, September 18, 2000

By 

James Paris "Tarnmoor" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Civilization Renaissance Italy (Arts & Letters) (Paperback)

Jacob Burckhardt had one of those rare minds who could construct a new synthesis out of thought, government, art, and culture -- and who, for the first time, made it possible to talk about the Renaissance as a moment in the history of Western man.

This is a very dense work with flashes of genius as well as long scholarly footnotes with extensively quoted Italian and Latin. In a book by a dullard, this would be excruciating. But Burckhardt is anything but as he manages his material like a Moscow taxi driver: by accelerating and then coasting. When you least expect it, another epiphany draws you in.

Burckhardt's Renaissance was an incredible high in the history of mankind. The Medicis, Sforzas, and Malatestas strut their way through the history of the period; Dante, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Bramante create works of the imagination that still overpower us; popes like Julius II, Alexander VI, and Leo X combine worldliness with spirituality (sometimes); and even the average man has a face and a voice for the first time.

This book will make your blood race.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the best edition., July 27, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

Yes, this is still the standard for studies of the Renaissance. But the book deserves a better edition: especially one with relevant illustrations on the page. The best I've seen is the 1958 two-volume Illustrated Edition by the Perennial Library of Harper & Row: not only are all notes conventiently at the bottom of the page, but over 240 illustrations grace the text, usually next to the mention of the subject. Too bad it is out of print. I hope an enterprising publisher will rise to the challenge.

69 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Burckhardt the Prescient Historian, July 26, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (San Mateo, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

For much of the last 139 years, Jacob Burckhardt's work has been dismissed as too "Nineteenth Century" for serious study: more literature than serious history. So much the pity. What Burckhardt left us in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is a magisterial, thematic, understanding of the Italian Renaissance that is far more 1990's in its observations and human understandings than its original 1860's. It is a shame that Burckhardt's famous pupil, Nietzsche, didn't learn a little more balance and discretion at his elder's feet. This book is a joy to read. Like Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, this work shows us how history can engage the spirit, and how far off the mark some modern historians have gone with their more "scholarly" work.