Burckhardt, Jacob

Jacob Burckhardt was an art and cultural historian, renowned for his historiographical method known as Kulturgeschichte. In the analysis of a historic moment, this method focuses on the moment’s inner aspects, such as the contemporaneous art and literature, the religious and moral habits, and the economical and social developments. Burckhardt was the author of the notable Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860; The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy), in which he declared that modernity was born in Italy in the fifteenth century. This work has long remained – and it still remains, even if outdated in many aspects – a classic of the critical literature on the Renaissance and an excellent example of cultural historical studies.