Burckhardt, Jacob.  The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. 
New York:  Modern Library (Random House).  1954.  Pp. xi, 424.

     Burckhardt's analysis of Renaissance history relies heavily on
the influence of cultural and intellectual matters.  Perhaps this
humanist bent is in reaction to Ranke's scholarly moralism; for all
the master's academic and research innovation, his keen intellect
settled mainly on matters religious and diplomatic.  Burckhardt
adhered to Ranke's passion for objective documentary research but
sought a new interpretation, a new impetus for Renaissance history. 
He included details of state intrigues and military forces, but not
for the sake of noting all the known facts.  The reported numbers
or specific data (Ferrante . . . passed as his legitimate son by a
Spanish lady, but was not improbably the son of a half-caste Moor
of Valencia (page 30)) are recorded to mark general and trends, and
to a greater degree, to provide insight into specific and
collective personalities.  
       Burckhardt took the Machiavellian notion of Florence as a
living organism (page 66) and expanded it to explain greater trends
in the progression of civilization.  Military power might be the
body of a personified civilization, but the animus was culture. 
Here Burckhardt departed from his predecessors and contemporaries. 
Never before had a historian placed so much emphasis on the arts
and culture.  It is unlikely that anyone else would have included
chapters such as "Neo-Latin poetry" or "Language and society"
intending for the reader to draw meaningful conclusions from them. 
His foray into the abstract values of art and literature leads him
to make caveats that are interesting in a historical work:  "this
is a matter of taste on which we are all free to form our own
opinion (page 190)."  Burckhardt's own opinion was certainly set
when the subject turned to the two cities that most closely
supported his theory of culture as social Demiurge.  Florence and
Venice seem to represent earthly paradise and punishment to the
scholar.  The Florentines, the possessors of "the highest and most
original life in the world (page 67)" were described in paragraphs
littered with exclamation points.  Venice is grudgingly granted the
recognition of being gifted with the gift of "calculation (page
59)."  The historian may have been prejudiced toward Florence
because that is where most of the great art was executed during the
early Renaissance, and therefore that would be where he could have
done the best original research.
     Burckhardt's interest in the psychic development of his
subjects is evidenced by his willing to compare the importance of
social life with "political life . . . religion, art and science
(page 265).  Perhaps this betrays some sympathy for the Romantics
who sought to soften or replace Enlightenment rationalism with a
Dionysian passion.       Even if Burckhardt drew from nineteenth-
century philosophies he also retained residual Kantian ethical
principles.  As much as he admired Machiavelli for his original
thought and patriotic stance, he was quick to point out that the
brutal power politicking was allowable only for the greater aim of
the strengthening of Italy.  In his occasional lapses into in moral
absolutism Burckhardt seems oddly inconsistent with his otherwise
objective, original thought.  Modern readers, especially art types,
steeped in toleration and ethical relativism may find bizarre
moral-of-the-story inclusions in Civilization:         " . . . the
accumulated crimes of such a family [Sigismondo Malatesta, et al]
must at last outweigh all talent, however great, and drag the
tyrant into the abyss (page 28)."  Later, he despaired at having to
quote Rabelais (page 322).    
     Generally, though, Burckhardt remains true to his basic
concept:  art and literature, freedom, and democracy are conducive
to human advancement.  Despotism and greed are parasites that
retard the healthy, normal growth of the social organism.  
Jason Carr
http://www.mousetrap.net/~mouse/uta/