[In the following excerpt, Ferguson, a noted Renaissance historian, describes the structure and argument of Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, and evaluates the continuing validity of Burckhardt's portrait of the age.]

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Burckhardt's masterpiece, was planned as an investigation of the inner spirit of Italy during the Renaissance.… Its subtitle, "An Essay," was not merely the product of his accustomed ironical modesty. He did not intend it to be a comprehensive history nor a reference book.… Even in the use of illustrative material he practiced perpetual restraint. He congratulated himself that he had not made it "three times as thick," as he might easily have done. But he wanted nothing to confuse the essential thesis or mar the artistic form of the work. As a result, the architectural design stands out clearly and leaves the impression of a perfectly integrated synthesis.

To outline the argument of a book so well known may seem an unjustifiable waste of space, yet in no other way could one do justice to the organic construction which is one of its most effective features. Moreover, it is not impossible that there may be scholars whose familiarity with Burckhardt's interpretation of the Renaissance is based on something less than a complete reading of his work. The book is divided into six parts, each viewing the civilization of Italy from the beginning of the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century from a different angle. The first part establishes the general political background. Here Burckhardt approached most nearly to the narrative tradition, though even here narrative is strictly subordinated to topical discussion of a prevailing condition. The peculiar character of Italian politics he ascribed in general to the conflict between the emperors and the popes. But causation was not his major interest. The principal thesis of this part is indicated in the title: "The State as a Work of Art," a phrase reminiscent of Hegel's characterization of Greek civilization. There is just enough narrative to illustrate his conclusion that in the Italian states "the modern European state-spirit appeared for the first time, free to follow its own inclinations," and that with them "a new factor enters history, the state as a calculated, conscious creation, the state as a work of art." Interwoven with this major theme is the secondary one of the character of the Renaissance man as illustrated and conditioned by his political activity. The illegitimacy of despotic government and the party strife in the republics bred a new type of individual, wholly dependent on his own resources and therefore developing them to the fullest extent, seeking only egocentric ends, and uninhibited by sentimental or traditional standards. "The conscious calculation of all means, of which no prince outside of Italy had at that time any idea, combined with an almost absolute power within the limits of the state, produced here men and modes of life that were altogether peculiar."

From this Burckhardt proceeded naturally to the second part, devoted to the most significant thesis of the book: "The Development of the Individual," which he thought resulted in large part from the unique political condition of the Italian states.

In the character of these states, whether republics or despotisms, lies not the only but the chief reason for the early evolution of the Italian into the modern man. That he became the first-born among the sons of modern Europe hangs on this point.

In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness—that which turned outward toward the world and that which turned inward toward man himself—lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation—only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; there developed an objective consideration and treatment of the state and of all things of this world; at the same time the subjective asserted itself with full power; man became a spiritual individual and recognized himself as such. In the same way the Greek had once distinguished himself from the barbarian.…

There are echoes of Hegel in this and a remarkable similarity to Voigt's analysis [in Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Altertums] of the corporate spirit of the Middle Ages and to his perception of Petrarch's consciousness of individual personality as the distinguishing trait of the "ancestor of the modern world." Yet Burckhardt had not read Voigt until his own work was almost through the press, and he need not have actually read Hegel. That individualism was the dominant trait of modem civilization and that it had first appeared during the Renaissance were ideas which had been in the air for some time. And the Romanticists had emphasized the unselfconscious, corporate qualities of medieval society ad nauseam. But no one had developed the concept of Renaissance individualism so fully in relation to every aspect of the culture of the age. Burckhardt made it the central point about which his whole synthesis was constructed. Perhaps for this reason, it remained a very protean concept. At times Burckhardt applied it to the individual's conscious dependence on his own resources for power and success in a hazardous society that had lost its traditional sanctions. Or again, it might denote the self-centered interests of "the private man, indifferent to politics and busied partly with serious pursuits, partly with the interests of a dilettante." In many instances it evidently meant a new moral autonomy or emancipation from inherited standards and authorities. Cosmopolitanism was still another of its occasional traits. In this section, where he developed the idea most specifically, Burckhardt stressed above all the stimulating consciousness of personality, and the resulting urge to give full expression to every talent and every facet of character. Leon Battista Alberti, the many-sided man and artist, is here the prototype. From this awareness of personality in oneself and in others resulted the modern idea of fame and its counterpart, the spiteful wit and satire of the humanists. Egotism was an ever-present ingredient in the compound, but more significant is the constant suggestion of a liberation, a new consciousness of spiritual freedom.

In the third part, and not till then, Burckhardt took up the "Revival of Antiquity," "the 'rebirth' of which has been one-sidedly chosen to sum up the whole period." And he began with the notable assertion that, though the influence of the ancients colored the civilization of the Renaissance in a thousand ways, it was not essential to its evolution. "The essence of the phenomena might have been the same without the classical revival."

We must insist upon it [he added] as one of the chief propositions of this book, that it was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius (Volksgeist) of the Italian people, which achieved the conquest of the Western World.

Here Burckhardt was running counter to a powerful tradition, though Hegel, Hagen, and, mutatis mutandis, Jules Michelet had already suggested that the classical revival was only one part of the Renaissance. Burckhardt went further than they, however, in demonstrating its relation to the major tendencies of the age as a result rather than cause.

For this [the Italian enthusiasm for antiquity] a development of civic life was required, which took place only in Italy, and there not till then [the fourteenth century]. It was needful that noble and burgher should first learn to dwell together on equal terms, and that a social world should arise which felt the want of culture and had the leisure and means to obtain it. But culture, when it first tried to free itself from the fantasies of the Middle Ages, could not find its way to knowledge of the physical and intellectual world by mere empiricism. It needed a guide, and found one in the ancient civilization with its wealth of objective, evident truth in every intellectual sphere.

For the rest, Burckhardt's account of the revival of antiquity is noteworthy chiefly for his description of the humanists as a new class in society and one marked by the modem traits of individualism and secularity. Their frequent character defects he ascribed to the hazards of their social position as well as to the influence of pagan antiquity.

Having thus established the bases of Renaissance civilization in the political situation, the emergence of the individual, and the revival of antiquity, Burckhardt devoted the remainder of the book to an analysis of the ways in which these factors operated in the cultural, social, and moral life of the age. Under the title, "The Discovery of the World and of Man," he expanded the concept and filled in the content of Michelet's famous phrase with a quantity of variegated illustrative material. To geographical exploration of the world, he added the discovery of natural beauty and progress in all the physical sciences. The greater part of this section, however, is devoted to the discovery of man, and the delineation of personality in the literature of the age. Here the development of the individual and consciousness of individuality is once more the keynote, conditioned in its expression by the influence of ancient literature. "But the power of perception lay in the age and in the nation."

In the fifth section, "Society and Festivals," Burckhardt proceeded to place the individual in his social setting. Here the prime factor is again the mingling of noble and burgher in an urban society founded on wealth and culture rather than on birth. As a result of this "the individual was forced to make the most of his personal qualities, and society to find its worth and charm in itself. The demeanor of individuals, and all the higher forms of social intercourse, became a free, consciously created work of art." Burckhardt's illustration of this theme is a veritable model for social Kulturgeschichte [cultural history].

Finally, in the last part, "Morality and Religion," Burckhardt turned, hesitatingly and with qualifications which his successors too frequently ignored, to judgment of the men of his favorite age. The tone of this part is set by Machiavelli's dictum: "We Italians are irreligious and corrupt above others." And Burckhardt concluded that "Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century found itself in the midst of a grave moral crisis." With no moral supports left except the sense of personal honor, the upper classes gave free reign to imagination and passion, with results that were frequently deplorable. Burckhardt's conception of Renaissance morality was in the tradition of Heinse and Stendhal, with qualifications,. but he did not idealize egotism and uninhibited passion. He may have felt unconsciously the fascination of forces of character which he himself lacked, but his Swiss Protestant morality was too firmly grounded to permit the suspension of moral judgment. He was far indeed from Nietzsche's positive approbation of the amoral superman. Burckhardt's apologia for the Renaissance man was based on purely historical grounds:

The fundamental vice of this [the Italian] character was at the same time a condition of its greatness, namely excessive individualism.… But this individual development did not come upon him through any fault of his own, but rather through an historical necessity. It did not come upon him alone, but also, and chiefly by means of Italian culture, upon the other nations of Europe, and has constituted since then the higher atmosphere which they breathe. In itself it is neither good nor bad, but necessary; within it has grown up a modern standard of good and evil, which is essentially different from that which was familiar to the Middle Ages. But the Italian of the Renaissance had to bear the first mighty surging of a new age.…

This was as far as he could go in excusing the immorality of the Renaissance men, or their indifference to religion, for, like Pierre Bayle and Voltaire, he was convinced that they had but little religion, though he did note frequent signs of true piety. The irreligious tone of Renaissance society he thought was partly the fault of the Church, partly of reverence for pagan antiquity, but mostly it was the natural result of that same individualism that made the Renaissance Italian in all things the forerunner of the modern world.

These modern men … were born with the same religious instincts as other medieval Europeans. But their more powerful individualism made them in religion as in other things altogether subjective, and the intense charm which the inner and outer universe exercised upon them rendered them markedly worldly. In the rest of Europe, religion remained till a much later period something given from without.

Thus, to the end, individualism and modernity remained for Burckhardt the twin keys to the interpretation of the Renaissance.

After generations of revisionism it is easy to discern the faults in Burckhardt's synthesis. It was too static, too sharply delimited in time and space, the contrast with the Middle Ages and the other European countries too strong. It was limited moreover, as Burckhardt himself was at times aware, to the upper classes of Italy. It omitted the economic life of Italy almost entirely and underestimated the effect of economic factors. It overstressed the individualism, and with it the immorality and irreligion of Renaissance society, as well as its creative energy. Finally, the whole synthesis was built upon an insecure foundation, upon the doubtful assumption that there was a specific spirit common to Italian society for a period of two hundred years, that it was born of the mystical cohabitation of the antique spirit with the Italian Volksgeist [spirit of the nation], and that it was essentially modern, the prototype of the modern world. Yet for all its faults of exaggeration, it contained much brilliantly penetrating analysis, and a great deal of evident truth. And it was no more one-sided than many of the later revisions.