The Civilisation Of The Renaissance In Italy - free ebook by Jacob Burckhardt

THE CIVILISATION OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY

By JACOB BURCKHARDT AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY S. G. C. MIDDLEMORE LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN &amp; UNWIN LTD. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY ...

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PREFACE.

D R . Burckhardt’s work on the Renaissance in Italy is too well known, not only to students of the period, but now to a wider circle of readers, for any introduction to be necessary. The increased interest which has of late years, in England, been taken in this and kindred subjects, and the welcome which has been given to the works of other writers upon them, encourage me to hope that in publishing this translation I am meeting a want felt by some who are either unable to read German at all, or

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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.

T HIS work bears the title of an essay in the strictest sense of the word. No one is more conscious than the writer with what limited means and strength he has addressed himself to a task so arduous. And even if he could look with greater confidence upon his own researches, he would hardly thereby feel more assured of the approval of competent judges. To each eye, perhaps, the outlines of a given civilisation present a different picture; and in treating of a civilisation which is the mother of o

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CHAPTER II. THE TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

T HE tyrannies, great and small, of the fourteenth century afford constant proof that examples such as these were not thrown away. Their misdeeds cried forth loudly and have been circumstantially told by historians. As states depending for existence on themselves alone, and scientifically organised with a view to this object, they present to us a higher interest than that of mere narrative. The deliberate adaptation of means to ends, of which no prince out of Italy had at that time a conception,

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CHAPTER III. THE TYRANNY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

T HE despotisms of the fifteenth century show an altered character. Many of the less important tyrants, and some of the greater, like the Scala and the Carrara, had disappeared, while the more powerful ones, aggrandized by conquest, had given to their systems each its characteristic development. Naples for example received a fresh and stronger impulse from the new Arragonese dynasty. A striking feature of this epoch is the attempt of the Condottieri to found independent dynasties of their own. F

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CHAPTER IV. THE PETTY TYRANNIES.

I T may be said in general of the despotisms of the fifteenth century that the greatest crimes are most frequent in the smallest states. In these, where the family was numerous and all the members wished to live in a manner befitting their rank, disputes respecting the inheritance were unavoidable. Bernardo Varano of Camerino put (1434) two of his brothers to death, [60] wishing to divide their property among his sons. Where the ruler of a single town was distinguished by a wise, moderate, and h

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CHAPTER V. THE GREATER DYNASTIES.

I N treating of the chief dynasties of Italy, it is convenient to discuss the Aragonese, on account of its special character, apart from the rest. The feudal system, which from the days of the Normans had survived in the form of a territorial supremacy of the Barons, gave a distinctive colour to the political constitution of Naples; while elsewhere in Italy, excepting only in the southern part of the ecclesiastical dominion, and in a few other districts, a direct tenure of land prevailed, and no

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CHAPTER VI. THE OPPONENTS OF TYRANNY.

I N face of this centralised authority, all legal opposition within the borders of the state was futile. The elements needed for the restoration of a republic had been for ever destroyed, and the field prepared for violence and despotism. The nobles, destitute of political rights, even where they held feudal possessions, might call themselves Guelphs or Ghibellines at will, might dress up their bravos in padded hose and feathered caps [107] or how else they pleased; thoughtful men like Macchiave

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CHAPTER VII. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE.

T HE Italian municipalities had, in earlier days, given signal proof of that force which transforms the city into the state. It remained only that these cities should combine in a great confederation; and this idea was constantly recurring to Italian statesmen, whatever differences of form it might from time to time display. In fact, during the struggles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, great and formidable leagues actually were formed by the cities; and Sismondi (ii. 174) is of opinion

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CHAPTER VIII. THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES.

A S the majority of the Italian states were in their internal constitution works of art, that is, the fruit of reflection and careful adaptation, so was their relation to one another and to foreign countries also a work of art. That nearly all of them were the result of recent usurpations, was a fact which exercised as fatal an influence in their foreign as in their internal policy. Not one of them recognised another without reserve; the same play of chance which had helped to found and consolid

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CHAPTER IX. WAR AS A WORK OF ART.

I T must here be briefly indicated by what steps the art of war assumed the character of a product of reflection. [210] Throughout the countries of the West the education of the individual soldier in the middle ages was perfect within the limits of the then prevalent system of defence and attack: nor was there any want of ingenious inventors in the arts of besieging and of fortification. But the development both of strategy and of tactics was hindered by the character and duration of military se

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CHAPTER X. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS.

T HE Papacy and the dominions of the Church [221] are creations of so peculiar a kind, that we have hitherto, in determining the general characteristics of Italian states, referred to them only occasionally. The deliberate choice and adaptation of political expedients, which gives so great an interest to the other states, is what we find least of all at Rome, since here the spiritual power could constantly conceal or supply the defects of the temporal. And what fiery trials did this state underg

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CHAPTER I. THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

I N the character of these states, whether republics or despotisms, lies, not the only, but the chief reason for the early development of the Italian. To this it is due that he was the first-born among the sons of modern Europe. In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness—that which was turned within as that which was turned without—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 wer

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CHAPTER II. THE PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

A N acute and practised eye might be able to trace, step by step, the increase in the number of complete men during the fifteenth century. Whether they had before them as a conscious object the harmonious development of their spiritual and material existence, is hard to say; but several of them attained it, so far as is consistent with the imperfection of all that is earthly. It may be better to renounce the attempt at an estimate of the share which fortune, character, and talent had in the life

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CHAPTER III. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME.

T O this inward development of the individual corresponds a new sort of outward distinction—the modern form of glory. [312] In the other countries of Europe the different classes of society lived apart, each with its own mediæval caste sense of honour. The poetical fame of the Troubadours and Minnesänger was peculiar to the knightly order. But in Italy social equality had appeared before the time of the tyrannies or the democracies. We there find early traces of a general society, having, as wil

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CHAPTER IV. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE.

T HE corrective, not only of this modern desire for fame, but of all highly developed individuality, is found in ridicule, especially when expressed in the victorious form of wit. [357] We read in the Middle Ages how hostile armies, princes, and nobles, provoked one another with symbolical insult, and how the defeated party was loaded with symbolical outrage. Here and there, too, under the influence of classical literature, wit began to be used as a weapon in theological disputes, and the poetry

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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

N OW that this point in our historical view of Italian civilization has been reached, it is time to speak of the influence of antiquity, the ‘new birth’ of which has been one-sidedly chosen as the name to sum up the whole period. The conditions which have been hitherto described would have sufficed, apart from antiquity, to upturn and to mature the national mind; and most of the intellectual tendencies which yet remain to be noticed would be conceivable without it. But both what has gone before

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CHAPTER II. ROME, THE CITY OF RUINS.

R OME itself, the city of ruins, now became the object of a wholly different sort of piety from that of the time when the ‘Mirabilia Romæ’ and the collection of William of Malmesbury were composed. The imaginations of the devout pilgrim, or of the seeker after marvels [406] and treasures, are supplanted in contemporary records by the interests of the patriot and the historian. In this sense we must understand Dante’s words, [407] that the stones of the walls of Rome deserve reverence, and that t

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CHAPTER III. THE OLD AUTHORS.

B UT the literary bequests of antiquity, Greek as well as Latin, were of far more importance than the architectural, and indeed than all the artistic remains which it had left. They were held in the most absolute sense to be the springs of all knowledge. The literary conditions of that age of great discoveries have been often set forth; no more can be here attempted than to point out a few less-known features of the picture. [432] Great as was the influence of the old writers on the Italian mind

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CHAPTER IV. HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

W HO now were those who acted as mediators between their own age and a venerated antiquity, and made the latter a chief element in the culture of the former? They were a crowd of the most miscellaneous sort, wearing one face to-day and another to-morrow; but they clearly felt themselves, and it was fully recognised by their time, that they formed a wholly new element in society. The ‘clerici vagantes’ of the twelfth century, whose poetry we have already referred to ( p. 174 ), may perhaps be tak

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CHAPTER V. THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS.

T HE influence of antiquity on culture, of which we have now to speak, presupposes that the new learning had gained possession of the universities. This was so, but by no means to the extent and with the results which might have been expected. Few of the Italian universities [485] show themselves in their full vigour till the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the increase of wealth rendered a more systematic care for education possible. At first there were generally three sorts of profes

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CHAPTER VI. THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM.

W E have here first to speak of those citizens, mostly Florentines, who made antiquarian interests one of the chief objects of their lives, and who were themselves either distinguished scholars, or else distinguished dilettanti who maintained the scholars. (Comp. pp. 193 sqq.) They were of peculiar significance during the period of transition at the beginning of the fifteenth century, since it was in them that humanism first showed itself practically as an indispensable element in daily life. It

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CHAPTER VII. THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY: LATIN CORRESPONDENCE AND ORATIONS.

T HERE were two purposes, however, for which the humanist was as indispensable to the republics as to princes or popes, namely, the official correspondence of the state, and the making of speeches on public and solemn occasions. Not only was the secretary required to be a competent Latinist, but conversely, only a humanist was credited with the knowledge and ability necessary for the post of secretary. And thus the greatest men in the sphere of science during the fifteenth century mostly devoted

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CHAPTER VIII. LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY.

F ROM the oratory and the epistolary writings of the humanists, we shall here pass on to their other creations, which were all, to a greater or less extent, reproductions of antiquity. Among these must be placed the treatise, which often took the shape of a dialogue. [568] In this case it was borrowed directly from Cicero. In order to do anything like justice to this class of literature—in order not to throw it aside at first sight as a bore—two things must be taken into consideration. The centu

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CHAPTER IX. GENERAL LATINISATION OF CULTURE.

W E cannot attempt to trace the influence of humanism in the special sciences. Each has its own history, in which the Italian investigators of this period, chiefly through their rediscovery of the results attained by antiquity, [577] mark a new epoch, with which the modern period of the science in question begins with more or less distinctness. With regard to philosophy, too, we must refer the reader to the special historical works on the subject. The influence of the old philosophers on Italian

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CHAPTER X. MODERN LATIN POETRY.

T HE chief pride of the humanists is, however, their modern Latin poetry. It lies within the limits of our task to treat of it, at least in so far as it serves to characterise the humanistic movement. How favourable public opinion was to that form of poetry, and how nearly it supplanted all others, has been already shown ( p. 252 ). We may be very sure that the most gifted and highly developed nation then existing in the world did not renounce the use of a language such as the Italian out of mer

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CHAPTER XI. FALL OF THE HUMANISTS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

A FTER a brilliant succession of poet-scholars had, since the beginning of the fourteenth century, filled Italy and the world with the worship of antiquity, had determined the forms of education and culture, had often taken the lead in political affairs and had, to no small extent, reproduced ancient literature—at length in the sixteenth century, before their doctrines and scholarship had lost hold of the public mind, the whole class fell into deep and general disgrace. Though they still served

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CHAPTER I. JOURNEYS OF THE ITALIANS.

F REED from the countless bonds which elsewhere in Europe checked progress, having reached a high degree of individual development and been schooled by the teachings of antiquity, the Italian mind now turned to the discovery of the outward universe, and to the representation of it in speech and in form. On the journeys of the Italians to distant parts of the world, we can here make but a few general observations. The crusades had opened unknown distances to the European mind, and awakened in all

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CHAPTER II. NATURAL SCIENCE IN ITALY.

F OR the position of the Italians in the sphere of the natural sciences, we must refer the reader to the special treatises on the subject, of which the only one with which we are familiar is the superficial and depreciatory work of Libri. [656] The dispute as to the priority of particular discoveries concerns us all the less, since we hold that, at any time, and among any civilised people, a man may appear who, starting with very scanty preparation, is driven by an irresistible impulse into the

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CHAPTER III. THE DISCOVERY OF NATURAL BEAUTY.

B UT , outside the sphere of scientific investigation, there is another way to draw near to nature. The Italians are the first among modern peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful. [681] The power to do so is always the result of a long and complicated development, and its origin is not easily detected, since a dim feeling of this kind may exist long before it shows itself in poetry and painting, and thereby becomes conscious of itself. Among the ancients, for

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CHAPTER IV. THE DISCOVERY OF MAN. SPIRITUAL DESCRIPTION IN POETRY.

T O the discovery of the outward world the Renaissance added a still greater achievement, by first discerning and bringing to light the full, whole nature of man. [705] This period, as we have seen, first gave the highest development to individuality, and then led the individual to the most zealous and thorough study of himself in all forms and under all conditions. Indeed, the development of personality is essentially involved in the recognition of it in oneself and in others. Between these two

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CHAPTER V. BIOGRAPHY.

O UTSIDE the sphere of poetry also, the Italians were the first of all European nations who displayed any remarkable power and inclination accurately to describe man as shown in history, according to his inward and outward characteristics. It is true that in the Middle Ages considerable attempts were made in the same direction; and the legends of the Church, as a kind of standing biographical task, must, to some extent, have kept alive the interest and the gift for such descriptions. In the anna

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CHAPTER VI. THE DESCRIPTION OF NATIONS AND CITIES.

T HIS national gift did not, however, confine itself to the criticism and description of individuals, but felt itself competent to deal with the qualities and characteristics of whole peoples. Throughout the Middle Ages the cities, families, and nations of all Europe were in the habit of making insulting and derisive attacks on one another, which, with much caricature, contained commonly a kernel of truth. But from the first the Italians surpassed all others in their quick apprehension of the me

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CHAPTER VII. DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTWARD MAN.

B UT the discoveries made with regard to man were not confined to the spiritual characteristics of individuals and nations; his outward appearance was in Italy the subject of an entirely different interest from that shown in it by northern peoples. [773] Of the position held by the great Italian physicians with respect to the progress of physiology, we cannot venture to speak; and the artistic study of the human figure belongs, not to a work like the present, but to the history of art. But somet

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CHAPTER VIII. DESCRIPTIONS OF LIFE IN MOVEMENT.

A MONG the new discoveries made with regard to man, we must reckon, in conclusion, the interest taken in descriptions of the daily course of human life. The comical and satirical literature of the Middle Ages could not dispense with pictures of every-day events. But it is another thing, when the Italians of the Renaissance dwelt on this picture for its own sake—for its inherent interest—and because it forms part of that great, universal life of the world whose magic breath they felt everywhere a

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CHAPTER I. THE EQUALISATION OF CLASSES.

E VERY period of civilisation, which forms a complete and consistent whole, manifests itself not only in political life, in religion, art, and science, but also sets its characteristic stamp on social life. Thus the Middle Ages had their courtly and aristocratic manners and etiquette, differing but little in the various countries of Europe, as well as their peculiar forms of middle-class life. Italian customs at the time of the Renaissance offer in these respects the sharpest contrast to mediæva

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CHAPTER II. THE OUTWARD REFINEMENT OF LIFE.

B UT in proportion as distinctions of birth ceased to confer any special privilege, was the individual himself compelled to make the most of his personal qualities, and society to find its worth and charm in itself. The demeanour of individuals, and all the higher forms of social intercourse, became ends pursued with a deliberate and artistic purpose. Even the outward appearance of men and women and the habits of daily life were more perfect, more beautiful, and more polished than among the othe

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CHAPTER III. LANGUAGE AS THE BASIS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

T HE higher forms of social intercourse, which here meet us as a work of art—as a conscious product and one of the highest products of national life—have no more important foundation and condition than language. In the most flourishing period of the Middle Ages, the nobility of Western Europe had sought to establish a ‘courtly’ speech for social intercourse as well as for poetry. In Italy, too, where the dialects differed so greatly from one another, we find in the thirteenth century a so-called

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CHAPTER IV. THE HIGHER FORMS OF SOCIETY.

T HIS society, at all events at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was a matter of art; and had, and rested on, tacit or avowed rules of good sense and propriety, which are the exact reverse of all mere etiquette. In less polished circles, where society took the form of a permanent corporation, we meet with a system of formal rules and a prescribed mode of entrance, as was the case with those wild sets of Florentine artists of whom Vasari tells us that they were capable of giving representa

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CHAPTER V. THE PERFECT MAN OF SOCIETY.

I T was for this society—or rather for his own sake—that the ‘Cortigiano,’ as described to us by Castiglione, educated himself. He was the ideal man of society, and was regarded by the civilisation of that age as its choicest flower; and the court existed for him far rather than he for the court. Indeed, such a man would have been out of place at any court, since he himself possessed all the gifts and the bearing of an accomplished ruler, and because his calm supremacy in all things, both outwar

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CHAPTER VI. THE POSITION OF WOMEN.

T O understand the higher forms of social intercourse at this period, we must keep before our minds the fact that women stood on a footing of perfect equality with men. [890] We must not suffer ourselves to be misled by the sophistical and often malicious talk about the assumed inferiority of the female sex, which we meet with now and then in the dialogues of this time, [891] nor by such satires as the third of Ariosto, [892] who treats woman as a dangerous grown-up child, whom a man must learn

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CHAPTER VII. DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

A FTER treating of the intercourse of society, let us glance for a moment at the domestic life of this period. We are commonly disposed to look on the family life of the Italians at this time as hopelessly ruined by the national immorality, and this side of the question will be more fully discussed in the sequel. For the moment we must content ourselves with pointing out that conjugal infidelity has by no means so disastrous an influence on family life in Italy as in the North, so long at least

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CHAPTER VIII. THE FESTIVALS.

I T is by no arbitrary choice that in discussing the social life of this period, we are led to treat of the processions and shows which formed part of the popular festivals. [913] The artistic power of which the Italians of the Renaissance gave proof on such occasions, [914] was attained only by means of that free intercourse of all classes which formed the basis of Italian society. In Northern Europe the monasteries, the courts, and the burghers had their special feasts and shows as in Italy; b

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CHAPTER I. MORALITY.

T HE relation of the various peoples of the earth to the supreme interests of life, to God, virtue, and immortality, may be investigated up to a certain point, but can never be compared to one another with absolute strictness and certainty. The more plainly in these matters our evidence seems to speak, the more carefully must we refrain from unqualified assumptions and rash generalisations. This remark is especially true with regard to our judgment on questions of morality. It may be possible to

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CHAPTER II. RELIGION IN DAILY LIFE.

T HE morality of a people stands in the closest connection with its consciousness of God, that is to say, with its firmer or weaker faith in the divine government of the world, whether this faith looks on the world as destined to happiness or to misery and speedy destruction. [1028] The infidelity then prevalent in Italy is notorious, and whoever takes the trouble to look about for proofs, will find them by the hundred. Our present task, here as elsewhere, is to separate and discriminate; refrai

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CHAPTER III. RELIGION AND THE SPIRIT OF THE RENAISSANCE.

B UT in order to reach a definite conclusion with regard to the religious sense of the men of this period, we must adopt a different method. From their intellectual attitude in general, we can infer their relation both to the Divine idea and to the existing religion of their age. These modern men, the representatives of the culture of Italy, were born with the same religious instincts as other mediæval Europeans. But their powerful individuality made them in religion, as in other matters, altoge

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CHAPTER IV. MIXTURE OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SUPERSTITION.

B UT in another way, and that dogmatically, antiquity exercised a perilous influence. It imparted to the Renaissance its own forms of superstition. Some fragments of this had survived in Italy all through the Middle Ages, and the resuscitation of the whole was thereby made so much the more easy. The part played by the imagination in the process need not be dwelt upon. This only could have silenced the critical intellect of the Italians. The belief in a Divine government of the world was in many

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CHAPTER V. GENERAL DISINTEGRATION OF BELIEF.

W ITH these superstitions, as with ancient modes of thought generally, the decline in the belief of immortality stands in the closest connection. [1269] This question has the widest and deepest relations with the whole development of the modern spirit. One great source of doubt in immortality was the inward wish to be under no obligations to the hated Church. We have seen that the Church branded those who thus felt as Epicureans ( p. 496 sqq.). In the hour of death many doubtless called for the

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