Jacob Burckhardt

Jacob Burckhardt was a Swiss historian of art and culture who is considered one of the founders of cultural history as an academic discipline. Born in 1818 in Basel, he spent most of his career as a professor at the University of Basel. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, first published in 1860, is his masterwork and one of the most influential works of historical scholarship ever written. The book argues that the Italian Renaissance represented the birth of modern individualism, secularism and the concept of the state as a work of art. Burckhardt's vivid portrait of Renaissance Italy, covering politics, culture, society, religion and the development of the individual, established a framework for understanding the period that has shaped historical thinking for over a century and a half. While subsequent scholars have challenged and refined many of his arguments, the work remains essential reading for anyone interested in the Renaissance. His audiobooks and books continue to influence how we understand one of the most creative periods in Western civilisation. He died in 1897.