Civilization of the Renaissance

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt, translated by SGC Middlemore, 394 pages

One of the classics of cultural history, Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy was first published in 1860 in German.  In it, Burckhardt surveys the literature of Italy during that ill-defined period called the Renaissance, and identifies the Italian city-states, with their intellectual ferment, financial prosperity, incessant wars, political upheavals, and social mobility, as the incubators of the modern concept of individuality.

That Burckhardt forms his conclusions based upon the literature of the period inevitably causes problems - just as a history of the US in the late twentieth century that used the portrayal of life in cop shows and action movies as a major source might very well conclude that Americans lived in constant fear of attack by neo-Nazis and Russian terrorists, Burckhardt's sources sometimes lead him in the direction of overly dramatic declarations.  The author is fully aware of these problems - as shown in a section in which he compares the efficacy of actual poisons to the purported properties ascribed to poisons by Renaissance chroniclers - but he is not always able to overcome them - as when he claims the existence of a "nest of witches" near Nurcia on the evidence of a letter that itself reports claims that witches and demons congregate in a local cave as a mere rumor.  Meanwhile, in keeping with his time, Burckhardt saw nothing of value in the Counter-Reformation or the Baroque style that accompanied it.  The book is only passingly concerned with the visual arts, which will frustrate readers who expect a book on the Renaissance to focus on art history.

Burckhardt mastered a vast range and body of material, and his survey of Italian Renaissance culture is rich and compelling.  In many ways, some of the best works on the Renaissance since his time (Hiram Haydn's The Counter-Renaissance) have been explorations of features and perplexities he identified.