Jacob Burckhardt

Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (May 25, 1818 – August 8,

Jacob Burckhardt
1897) was a Swiss historian of art and culture and an influential
figure in the historiography of both fields. He is known as one of
the major progenitors of cultural history.[1] Sigfried Giedion
described Burckhardt's achievement in the following terms: "The
great discoverer of the age of the Renaissance, he first showed
how a period should be treated in its entirety, with regard not only
for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but for the social
institutions of its daily life as well."[2] Burckhardt's best known
work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).

Contents
Life
Jacob Burckhardt in 1892
Work
Born May 25, 1818
Politics Basel, Switzerland
Bibliography Died August 8, 1897
References (aged 79)
Further reading Basel, Switzerland

External links Nationality Swiss

Alma mater University of Bonn
Known for The Civilization of the
Life Renaissance in Italy
(Die Cultur der
The son of a Protestant clergyman, Burckhardt was born and died
Renaissance in Italien;
in Basel, where he studied theology in the hope of taking holy
1860)
orders; however, under the influence of Wilhelm Martin
Leberecht de Wette, he chose not to become a clergyman. He was Scientific career
a member of the patrician Burckhardt family. Fields History of art
Cultural history
He finished his degree in 1839 and went to the University of
Institutions University of Basel
Berlin to study history,[3] especially art history, then a new field.
Federal Polytechnic
At Berlin, he attended lectures by Leopold von Ranke, the
School
founder of history as a respectable academic discipline based on
sources and records rather than personal opinions. He spent part
of 1841 at the University of Bonn, studying under the art historian Franz Theodor Kugler, to whom he
dedicated his first book, Die Kunstwerke der belgischen Städte (1842).

He taught at the University of Basel from 1843 to 1855, then at the Federal Polytechnic School. In 1858,
he returned to Basel to assume the professorship he held until his retirement in 1893. He started to teach
only art history in 1886. He twice declined offers of professorial chairs at German universities, at the
University of Tübingen in 1867 and Ranke's chair at the
University of Berlin in 1872.

See Life by Hans Trog in the Basler Jahrbuch for 1898, pp. 1–
172.

Burckhardt is currently featured on the Swiss thousand franc

banknote.

Work
Burckhardt's historical writings did much to establish the
importance of art in the study of history; indeed, he was one of
the "founding fathers of art history" but also one of the original
creators of cultural history. According to John Lukacs, he was the
first master of cultural history, which seeks to describe the spirit
and the forms of expression of a particular age, a particular
people, or a particular place. His innovative approach to historical
research stressed the importance of art and its inestimable value
as a primary source for the study of history. He was one of the
first historians to rise above the narrow 19th-century notion that
"history is past politics and politics current history."[4]
Burckhardt's unsystematic approach to history was strongly
opposed to the interpretations of Hegelianism, which was popular
at the time; economism as an interpretation of history; and
positivism, which had come to dominate scientific discourses
(including the discourse of the social sciences).
Burckhardt on the eighth series of
In 1838, Burckhardt made his first journey to Italy and published the Swiss banknotes.
his first important article, "Bemerkungen über schweizerische
Kathedralen" ("Remarks about Swiss Cathedrals"). Burckhardt
delivered a series of lectures at the University of Basel, which were published in 1943 by Pantheon
Books Inc., under the title Force and Freedom: An Interpretation of History by Jacob Burckhardt. In
1847, he brought out new editions of Kugler's two great works, Geschichte der Malerei and
Kunstgeschichte, and in 1853, he published his own work, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen ("The Age
of Constantine the Great"). He spent the greater part of the years 1853 and 1854 in Italy, collecting
material for his 1855 Der Cicerone: Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens (7th German
edition, 1899) ("The Cicerone: or, Art-guide to painting in Italy. For the use of travellers" Translated into
English by A. H. Clough in 1873), also dedicated to Kugler. The work, "the finest travel guide that has
ever been written"[5] which covered sculpture and architecture, and painting, became an indispensable
guide to the art traveller in Italy.

About half of the original edition was devoted to the art of the Renaissance. Thus, Burckhardt was
naturally led to write the two books for which he is best known, his 1860 Die Cultur der Renaissance in
Italien ("The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy") (English translation, by S. G. C. Middlemore, in 2
vols., London, 1878), and his 1867 Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien ("The History of the
Renaissance in Italy"). The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy was the most influential interpretation
of the Italian Renaissance in the 19th century and is still widely read. In connection with this work
Burckhardt may have been the first historian to use the term "modernity" in a clearly-defined, academic
context.[6] Burckhardt developed an ambivalent interpretation of modernity and the effects of the
Renaissance, praising the movement as introducing new forms of cultural and religious freedom but also
worrying about the potential feelings of alienation and disenchantment modern men might feel.[6] These
claims proved quite controversial, but the scholarly judgements of Burckhardt's History of the
Renaissance are sometimes considered to be justified by subsequent research according to historians
including Desmond Seward and art historians such as Kenneth Clark. Burckhardt and the German
historian Georg Voigt founded the historical study of the Renaissance. In contrast to Voigt, who confined
his studies to early Italian humanism, Burckhardt dealt with all aspects of Renaissance society.

Burckhardt considered the study of ancient history an intellectual necessity and was a highly respected
scholar of Greek civilization. "The Greeks and Greek Civilization" sums up the relevant lectures,
"Griechische Kulturgeschichte", which Burckhardt first gave in 1872 and which he repeated until 1885.
At his death, he was working on a four-volume survey of Greek civilization.

"Judgments on History and Historians" is based on Burckhardt's lectures on history at the University of
Basel between 1865 and 1885. It provides his insights and interpretation of the events of the entire sweep
of Western Civilization from Antiquity to the Age of Revolution, including the Middle Ages, History
from 1450 to 1598, the History of the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth Centuries.[7]

Friedrich Nietzsche, appointed professor of classical philology at Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, admired
Burckhardt and attended some of his lectures. Both men were admirers of the late Arthur Schopenhauer.
Nietzsche believed Burckhardt agreed with the thesis of his The Birth of Tragedy, that Greek culture was
defined by opposing "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" tendencies. Nietzsche and Burckhardt enjoyed each
other's intellectual company, even as Burckhardt kept his distance from Nietzsche's evolving philosophy.
Their extensive correspondence over a number of years has been published. Burckhardt's student
Heinrich Wölfflin succeeded him at the University of Basel at the age of only 28.

Politics
There is a tension in Burckhardt's persona between the wise and worldly student of the Italian
Renaissance and the cautious product of Swiss Calvinism, which he had studied extensively for the
ministry. The Swiss polity in which he spent nearly all of his life was a good deal more democratic and
stable than was the norm in 19th-century Europe. As a Swiss, Burckhardt was also cool to German
nationalism and to German claims of cultural and intellectual superiority. He was also amply aware of the
rapid political and economic changes taking place in the Europe of his day and commented in his lectures
and writings on the Industrial Revolution, the European political upheavals of his day, and the growing
European nationalism and militarism. Events amply fulfilled his prediction of a cataclysmic 20th century,
in which violent demagogues (whom he called "terrible simplifiers") would play central roles. In later
years, Burckhardt found himself unimpressed by democracy, individualism, socialism and a great many
other ideas fashionable during his lifetime.

He also observed over a century ago that "the state incurs debts for politics, war, and other higher causes
and 'progress'.... The assumption is that the future will honor this relationship in perpetuity. The state has
learned from the merchants and industrialists how to exploit credit; it defies the nation ever to let it go
into bankruptcy. Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief".[8]

Bibliography
In English translation

1873. The cicerone: or, Art-guide to painting in Italy. For the use of travellers (https://archiv
e.org/details/ciceroneorartgui00burc) Translation by A. H. Clough.
1878. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (https://web.archive.org/web/2008092114
5058/http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/burckhardt.html). The
Middlemore translation of the 1860 German original (Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien,
1860).
1990. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (https://books.google.com/books?id=zIP0
01EQpj8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jacob+Burckhardt&sig=AErisAS-14sin2tbelN5CnG0R
Rk#PPP3,M1). Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044534-X
1999. The Greeks and Greek Civilization, Oswyn Murray, ed. New York: St Martin's Griffin.
ISBN 0-312-24447-9 (translation of Griechische Kulturgeschichte, 1898–1902)

1929. Judgements on History and Historians

The Letters of Jacob Burckhardt. ISBN 0-86597-122-6.
1943. Reflections on History. ISBN 0-913966-37-1.

References
1. Jakob Burckhardt Renaissance Cultural History (http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/hist
orian/Jacob_Burckhardt.html)
2. In Space, Time and Architecture (6th ed.), p 3.
3. The Letters of Jacob Burckhardt, Translated by Alexander Dru, London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1955; Liberty Fund Inc., 2001, xxviii-xxxii.
4. John Lukacs, Remembered Past: John Lukacs on History, Historians, and Historical
Knowledge, ed. Mark G Malvasi and Jeffrey O. Nelson, Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2004,
215.
5. Giedion, p. 4.
6. Josephson-Storm, Jason (2017). The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the
Birth of the Human Sciences (https://books.google.com/books?id=xZ5yDgAAQBAJ).
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 91. ISBN 0-226-40336-X.
7. Burckhardt: Judgments on history and historians
8. Judgments on History and Historians (tr. Boston: 1958), p. 171 - cited in "Super
Imperialism" by M. Hudson

Further reading
Bauer, Stefan (2001): Polisbild und Demokratieverständnis in Jacob Burckhardts
"Griechischer Kulturgeschichte". Basel: Schwabe. ISBN 978-3-7965-1674-0
Gilbert, Felix (1990). History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 109. ISBN 0-691-03163-0.
Gossman, Lionel, 2000. Basel in the Age of Burckhardt: A Study in Unseasonable Ideas.
The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-30500-7
Grosse, Jurgen, 1999, "Reading History: On Jacob Burckhardt as Source-Reader," Journal
of the History of Ideas 60: 525-47.
Gossman, Lionel. "Jacob Burckhardt: Cold War Liberal?" Journal of Modern History (2002)
74#3 pp. 538–572 in JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/345111)
Hinde, John R., 2000. Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity. McGill-Queen's
Studies in the History of Ideas. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-1027-3
 Howard, Thomas Albert, 1999. 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. ISBN 0-521-65022-4
Kahan, Alan S., 1992. Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob
Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill, and Alexis De Tocqueville. Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0195070194
Mommsen, Wolfgang. "Jacob Burckhardt- Defender of Culture and Prophet of Doom,"
Government and Opposition (1983) 18#4 pp. 458–475.
Rüsen, Jörn. "Jacob Burckhardt: Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Border of
Postmodernism," History and Theory (1985) 24#3 pp. 235–246
Sigurdson, Richard, 2004. Jacob Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought. Univ. of Toronto
Press. ISBN 0802047807

External links
Burckhardt at 200: The Civilization of the Renaissance reconsidered (https://www.britac.ac.uk/events/bur
ckhardt-200-civilization-renaissance-reconsidered), British Academy, London 31 May - 1 June 2018

Publications by and about Jacob Burckhardt (https://nb-helveticat.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/d

iscovery/search?query=any,contains,%22Jacob+Burckhardt%22&tab=LibraryCatalog&sear
ch_scope=MyInstitution&vid=41SNL_51_INST:helveticat&lang=de&offset=0) in the
catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library
Works by Jacob Burckhardt (https://www.gutenberg.org/author/Burckhardt,+Jacob) at
Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Jacob Burckhardt (https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subjec
t%3A%22Burckhardt%2C%20Jacob%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Jacob%20Burckhard
t%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Burckhardt%2C%20Jacob%22%20OR%20creator%3A%
22Jacob%20Burckhardt%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Burckhardt%2C%20J%2E%22%2
0OR%20title%3A%22Jacob%20Burckhardt%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Burckhard
t%2C%20Jacob%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Jacob%20Burckhardt%22%29%20O
R%20%28%221818-1897%22%20AND%20Burckhardt%29%29%20AND%20%28-mediaty
pe:software%29) at Internet Archive
Works by Jacob Burckhardt (https://librivox.org/author/5246) at LibriVox (public domain
audiobooks)
Jakob Burckhardt Renaissance - Cultural history. (http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/his
torian/Jacob_Burckhardt.html)
A Brief Biography. (http://www.jacobburckhardt.com/)
Complete German text of The Greeks and Greek Civilization (Griechische Kulturgeschichte)
(http://www.zeno.org/Geschichte/M/Burckhardt,+Jacob/Griechische+Kulturgeschichte)
Jacob Burckhardt: Historian Of Civilization (http://www.obfuchai.com/pages/jb.html) essay
on the life and works of Jacob Burckhardt by Olivier Burckhardt, Contemporary Review,
November 1997, Vol. 271, Issue 1582, pp. 250–256
Jacob Burckhardt at arthistoricum.net (http://www.arthistoricum.net/themen/themenportale/g
eschichte-der-kunstgeschichte/quellen-zur-geschichte-der-kunstgeschichte-digital/jacob-bur
ckhardt-1818-1897/)

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