Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is the book that taught the modern world to see the Renaissance as the birth of the modern. In this new edition, his magisterial exploration of Italian city-states, humanist learning, the discovery of the self, and the flowering of art and society is rendered into clear, flowing English that speaks directly to today's reader. Burckhardt shows how, between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Italy became a laboratory of innovation—in politics, in culture, in how people understood themselves and their world. From the tyrannies of Milan to the republics of Florence and Venice, from the revival of classical letters to the dawn of scientific observation, this book traces the rise of a new spirit that transformed Europe. With a biographical preface, a glossary of key names and terms, and a selection of the work's most memorable passages, this edition is designed for anyone who wants to encounter a seminal work of history without wrestling with archaic prose. Part of The Modern Wisdom Library.
