Jacob Burckhardt
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Jacob Burckhardt on One thousand Swiss francs banknote |
Jacob Burckhardt (
May 25,
1818â€"
August 8,
1897) was a
Swiss historian of
art and
culture.
He was born in
Basel, educated there and in
Neuchâtel, and, till 1839, intended to be a pastor. In
1838 he made his first journey to Italy, and also published his first important articles,
Bemerkungen über schweizerische Kathedralen ("Remarks about Swiss Cathedrals"). In 1839 he went to the
University of Berlin, where he studied until 1843, spending part of 1841 at
Bonn, where he was a pupil of
Franz Kugler, the art historian, to whom his first book,
Die Kunstwerke der belgischen Städte (1842), was dedicated. He was professor of history at the
University of Basel (1845â€"1847, 1849-1855 and 1858â€"1893) and at the federal polytechnic school at
Zürich (1855â€"1858).
In
1847 he brought out new editions of Kugler's two great works,
Geschichte der Malerei and Kunstgeschichte, and in 1853 published his own work,
Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen ("The Age of Constantine the Great"). He spent the greater part of the years 1853â€"1854 in Italy, where he collected the materials for one of his most famous works,
Der Cicerone: Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens, which was dedicated to Kugler and appeared in 1855 (7th German edition, 1899).
This work, which includes
sculpture and
architecture, as well as painting, became indispensable to the art traveller in Italy. About half of the original edition was devoted to the art of the
Renaissance, so that Burckhardt was naturally led on to the preparation of his two other celebrated works,
Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien ("The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy") (1860, English translation, by SGC Middlemore, in 2 vols., London, 1878), and the
Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien ("The History of the Renaissance in Italy") (1867). In 1867 he refused a professorship at the
University of Tübingen, and in 1872 another (that left vacant by Ranke) at Berlin, remaining faithful to Basel.
See
Life by Hans Trog in the
Basler Jahrbuch for 1898, pp. 1-172.
He is featured on the Swiss one thousand franc banknote.
His work
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is still widely read and was to become the most influential interpretation of the Italian Renaissance in the 19th century. Burckhardt and the German historian
George Voigt were the beginners of a modern historical Renaissance research. In contrast to Voigt, Burckhardt dealt with all aspects of Renaissance society. Voigt treats of the movement and development of the early Italian humanism only.
*Jakob Burckhardt,
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Penguin Classics, 1990, ISBN 014044534X
*Jakob Burckhardt,
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy*
Jakob Burckhardt Renaissance - Cultural history*Howard, Thomas Albert,
Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. De Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness, Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0521650224
*
Free ebook of Jacob Burckhardt at
Project Gutenberg
