This book by one of the leading art-historians of all time -Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897)- is an absolute masterpiece. This free e-book is the translation of 'Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien' by S.G.C. Middlemore in 1878, it is in the public domain. This Kindle edition has 251 pages/5943 locations. This edition does not contain notes or a biography; the original German edition does have a lot of footnotes and a biography at the end. This Kindle-edition has no typos or errors or other problems in it.
This book is about the Renaissance in Italy, which experienced its pinnacle around 1500. Burckhardt did extensive research in archives before writing this book, he used sources from the times itself. Even though Burckhardt was an art-historian, this book is a book about history, there is little about art in this book. Burckhardt not only writes about states, but also about people, language, clothes, religion and every day life, universities and schools, immorality, poetry and much more. This is a great book, in spite of its age it is still very readable, Burckhardt had a lively way of writing. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history, this is not only one of the most important history-books ever written, it is still a nice read.
The only negative thing I can say about it is that Burckhardt's idea of a complete break between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is now obsolete; today it is genarally believed that it was not a complete and sudden break but a slow process, in which some people moved faster towards the modern times than other people.
If you liked this book, then you'll probably will also like the works by Johan Huizinga (1872-1945).
The contents of this book are 6 'books', each of those has several chapters. The 'books' are:
Part One: The State as a Work of Art
Part Two: The Development of the Individual
Part Three: The Revival of Antiquity
Part Four: The Discovery of the World and of Man
Part Five: Society and Festivals
Part Six: Morality and Religion
As a sample of the way of writing I copy a few lines from the first book:
[...]
Among the Florentines, whenever they got rid of, or tried to get rid
of, the Medici, tyrannicide was a practice universally accepted and
approved. After the flight of the Medici in 1494, the bronze group of
Donatello Judith with the dead Holofernes was taken from their
collection and placed before the Palazzo della Signoria, on the spot
where the 'David' of Michelangelo now stands, with the inscription,
'Exemplum salutis publicae cives posuere 1495.
[...]
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