The idea of the 'Renaissance': Burckhardt and the sources

Detail

What the period covers

• The phase runs from the fourteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century in Europe.
• The big change was not in villages but in towns. Towns grew, and with them grew a new 'urban culture' (the way of life, habits and ideas of town people).
• Town people began to think of themselves as more 'civilised' than people in the countryside. This was a new kind of pride, based on where you lived.

The towns at the centre

• Florence, Venice and Rome became the main centres of art and learning.
• Rich men in these towns gave money and shelter to artists and writers. This support is called patronage.
• Because of patronage, an artist did not have to be a craftsman working only for the church. He could work for a banker, a merchant or a ruler.
• Printing (books made by machine instead of copied by hand) spread books to many more readers. Ideas now travelled faster and further than before.

A new sense of history

• A sense of history developed. Educated Europeans started to place themselves on a timeline.
• They called themselves 'modern'. They called the Greeks and Romans 'ancient'. The years in between they saw as a middle, darker stretch.
• This three-part split — ancient, middle, modern — is itself a product of this period, not a neutral fact.

Three old beliefs that broke

• Religion became a personal choice. Belief was now seen as something an individual decides, not only something the church hands down.
• Astronomy overturned the earth-centric belief. The church had taught that the earth sits at the centre. New study of the skies showed it does not.
• Geography changed the map. The old idea that the Mediterranean sea was the centre of the world was thrown out once new lands and sea routes were known.

The sources — why this period is so well documented

• Sources for this period are abundant (there are very many of them). This is unlike ancient history, where evidence is thin.
• The kinds of sources are: documents, printed books, paintings, sculptures, buildings and textiles.
• They survive in archives, art galleries and museums in Europe and America.
• Point to remember: because printing existed, written sources multiply sharply from this period onward.

Who invented the word 'Renaissance'

• The word 'Renaissance' means 'rebirth'. Rebirth of what? Of the learning and art of ancient Greece and Rome.
• Key exam point: people living in the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries did not call their own age the Renaissance. The label was applied only from the nineteenth century.
• The man who fixed the term in place was Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97) of Basle (Basel, in Switzerland). He was a Swiss historian of art and culture, born in Basel. [2]

Burckhardt's teacher, and why Burckhardt broke away

• Burckhardt was a student of Leopold von Ranke.
• Ranke (1795–1886) was a German historian, often called a founder of the modern school of history, who insisted history must rest on original source material and not on legend or tradition. [3]
• Ranke's famous line was that history should show "wie es eigentlich gewesen" — how it actually was. [3]
• Ranke taught at the University of Berlin for 37 years and was the first to set up the historical seminar (a small class where students are trained to handle documents themselves). [3]
• What Ranke taught: history is written about states and politics, and the evidence is government files.
• Why Burckhardt was unhappy with this:
• Government files tell you about kings, wars and treaties.
• They tell you nothing about how ordinary town people thought, painted, prayed or built.
• Burckhardt wanted culture, not only politics.

The book: The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (1860)

• Burckhardt wrote The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, published in 1860.
• It appeared first in German as Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, published at Basel in 1860; the English translation followed in 1878. [2]
• His sources were literature, architecture and painting — not state papers. This made the book a model for cultural history. [2]
• The book is organised around themes such as the state as a work of art, the development of individuality, and the discovery of the world and of man. [2]
• Burckhardt also drew on chronicles and tales written at the time, to reach daily life and thought, not just politics. [2]
• His method passed on to later art historians, most famously his student Heinrich Wölfflin. [2]

The core argument — 'humanist' culture

• Burckhardt argued that Italian towns had grown a new 'humanist' culture.
• The central belief of that culture: man, as an individual, could make his own decisions and develop his own skills.
• He set this 'modern' man against 'medieval' man, who he said was controlled by the church.
• Break it down:
• Medieval man — identity comes from the group: the guild, the family, the church.

• Modern man — identity comes from the self: personal talent, personal choice, personal fame.

• So 'Renaissance' is not only a date-range. It is an argument about a change in the human personality — and that argument is Burckhardt's, made in 1860.

Prelims Hooks

• 'Renaissance' means rebirth; the term was applied only from the nineteenth century, not by people of the period itself.
• Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97) belonged to Basle and was a Swiss historian of art and culture. [2]
• Burckhardt's book: The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, 1860; German original Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, published at Basel; English translation 1878. [2]
• Burckhardt's teacher was Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), who held that history is written about states and politics from government files. [3]
• Ranke's motto: "wie es eigentlich gewesen" — show how it actually was; he taught at Berlin for 37 years and began the historical seminar. [3]
• Ranke's History of the Popes was published in 1834–36. [3]
• Burckhardt's sources were literature, architecture and painting; his themes included the state as a work of art and the development of individuality. [2]
• The core of 'humanist' culture: man, as an individual, could make his own decisions and develop his skills.
• Centres of art and learning: Florence, Venice and Rome.
• Period span: fourteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century; sources survive in archives, art galleries and museums of Europe and America.

Mains Points

• The label is younger than the age it names. A nineteenth-century historian invented the frame that we now use to read the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. This is a clean example for a GS-I answer on how historians construct periods — 'ancient / medieval / modern' is a made thing, not a found thing.
• Choice of source decides the history you write. Ranke used government files and got the history of states. [3] Burckhardt used paintings, buildings and literature and got the history of a culture. [2] Same period, different evidence, different conclusion — useful as a general point on historical method.
• The 'modern individual versus medieval church' contrast is Burckhardt's thesis, not settled fact. Later historians have questioned the sharp break, pointing out that the church kept enormous power and that classical learning never fully vanished in the middle period. Present the NCERT position, then note it is a debate.
• Linkage to the rest of the chapter. Burckhardt's 'individual who decides for himself' connects directly forward: religion as personal choice (Reformation), astronomy against the earth-centric belief (Scientific Revolution), and new geography displacing the Mediterranean. One idea, three outcomes — a good answer spine.