Description
A Renaissance Reclaimed brings together an international team of historians of scholarship, politics, religion, literature, and ideas, whose expertise straddles the Renaissance and nineteenth century, to evaluate the achievement and legacy of the most famous work by the Swiss 'father of cultural history' Jacob Burckhardt (1818-97): The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (1860). The capaciousness of Burckhardt's vision, which embraced fashion, false teeth, and hair extensions as well as the 'State as a work of art', development of the individual, revival of antiquity, discovery of the world and of man, society and festivals, and morality and religion, has never been equalled. Insights in this volume are made possible by the new critical edition that only serves to emphasise how artful Burckhardt's reading of primary (pre-eminently literary rather than art-historical) sources was. It also shows how Burckhardt's ambivalence towards the Renaissance reflected his deep anxieties about the social and political corollaries of modernisation.
About the Author
Stefan Bauer is a lecturer in early modern world history at King's College London. He is a fellow and council member of the Royal Historical Society and has taught at the universities of York, Warwick and Royal Holloway as well as in Switzerland and Italy. Simon Ditchfield is professor of early modern history at the University of York, where he has taught for over thirty years. His research interests encompass religious history and the history of history writing. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a member of the Accademia Ambrosiana, Milan.
Reviews
One reason why Burckhardt can still be read out of sheer interest in his subject-matter is that he drew so much much of his material from primary sources -- chronicles, diaries, anecdotes, satires, comic novelle and so on. This was a humanistic and gentlemanly kind of scholarship, unlike the newfangled academic processing of archival documents; and it helped to inoculate his work against some kinds of obsolescence, since Vespasiano da Bisticci, Giorgio Vasari, Pietro Aretino and the rest can read just as freshly today as they did in 1860. * Noel Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement *
Here and there in Burckhardt's book, one finds possible hints at the factors that formed this national "spirit": relatively egalitarian social conditions; consciousness of ancient glory; even a kind of tolerance generated by contacts with the Muslim world. * Noel Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement *
a fascinating collection ... The reader learns about both the Renaissance itself and its historiography while learning about Jacob Burckhardt * Noel Malcolm, All Souls College, Oxford, Times Literary Supplement *
... a volume that offers important information on the invention of the "Renaissance" from the spirit of the 19th century and in this way encourages independent reading of the source. * Volker Reinhardt, sehepunkte *
Burckhardt is still capable of imparting an energetic curiosity and love of the past, a drive to imagine it and to try it on for size, of inspiring us to tell our own stories about the Renaissance or early modern; that may be the constant here. * Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA, Global Intellectual History *
This is a highly rewarding collection of essays, which sheds much valuable light on a canonical text, and also on many of the ways in which it has informed - and continues to shape - our understanding of, and approaches to, that critical period of European civilization. * Kenneth Austin, University of Bristol, Forum for Modern Language Studies *
Renaissance in this great book is an intellectual and cultural construction of the nineteenth century and of the afterlife of German philosophical idealism. * Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance and Reformation *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197267325
Author Stefan Bauer
Format Hardback
Page Count 312
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 592g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 162mm * 22mm
About the Author
Stefan Bauer is a lecturer in early modern world history at King's College London. He is a fellow and council member of the Royal Historical Society and has taught at the universities of York, Warwick and Royal Holloway as well as in Switzerland and Italy. Simon Ditchfield is professor of early modern history at the University of York, where he has taught for over thirty years. His research interests encompass religious history and the history of history writing. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a member of the Accademia Ambrosiana, Milan.
Reviews
One reason why Burckhardt can still be read out of sheer interest in his subject-matter is that he drew so much much of his material from primary sources -- chronicles, diaries, anecdotes, satires, comic novelle and so on. This was a humanistic and gentlemanly kind of scholarship, unlike the newfangled academic processing of archival documents; and it helped to inoculate his work against some kinds of obsolescence, since Vespasiano da Bisticci, Giorgio Vasari, Pietro Aretino and the rest can read just as freshly today as they did in 1860. * Noel Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement *
Here and there in Burckhardt's book, one finds possible hints at the factors that formed this national "spirit": relatively egalitarian social conditions; consciousness of ancient glory; even a kind of tolerance generated by contacts with the Muslim world. * Noel Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement *
a fascinating collection ... The reader learns about both the Renaissance itself and its historiography while learning about Jacob Burckhardt * Noel Malcolm, All Souls College, Oxford, Times Literary Supplement *
... a volume that offers important information on the invention of the "Renaissance" from the spirit of the 19th century and in this way encourages independent reading of the source. * Volker Reinhardt, sehepunkte *
Burckhardt is still capable of imparting an energetic curiosity and love of the past, a drive to imagine it and to try it on for size, of inspiring us to tell our own stories about the Renaissance or early modern; that may be the constant here. * Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA, Global Intellectual History *
This is a highly rewarding collection of essays, which sheds much valuable light on a canonical text, and also on many of the ways in which it has informed - and continues to shape - our understanding of, and approaches to, that critical period of European civilization. * Kenneth Austin, University of Bristol, Forum for Modern Language Studies *
Renaissance in this great book is an intellectual and cultural construction of the nineteenth century and of the afterlife of German philosophical idealism. * Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance and Reformation *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197267325
Author Stefan Bauer
Format Hardback
Page Count 312
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 592g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 162mm * 22mm
