JACOB BURCKHARDT. — Protestant historian, born in Basel on 25 May 1818, died there on 8 August 1897. After completing his gymnasium studies, he enrolled in the Faculty of Theology in his native city, from which, after two years, he moved to Berlin. There he attended the Faculty of Philosophy, especially the courses of Ranke (history), Boeckh (classical antiquity), and Kugler (history of art).
In 1853 he published a work on the age of Constantine (*Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen*), an important work not because it constitutes a fundamental study of that Roman emperor, but for the approach given to the historiographical problem concerning the transitional age, in which the progressive decline of the classical age is balanced by the new dawn of emerging Christianity, which announces the medieval era of the "res publica christiana." Once the medieval unity was broken, B. dreamed (and this is the motivating reason behind the genesis of the book) of a restoration of that unity on spiritual foundations different from the directives of the Catholic Church and the Papacy, believing that he could thus coordinate the particular needs of individuals and society, while remaining firm in the continuous flow of the historical process, by which, for example, the age of Constantine would present, more than a predominant influence of Christianity over dying paganism, an "inner development within paganism itself." The political situation, however, did not encourage the ideal of a united and solidaristic humanity, and B., with his refined sensitivity, increasingly distanced himself from the historical vision of Ranke and his followers.
After publishing in 1855 *Cicerone*, an artistic guide to Italy, convinced that only the creative activity of the spirit, and thus works of art, give the exact measure of human value, B. gave life to that historiographical trend known as *Kulturgeschichte*, of which his *Kultur der Renaissance in Italien* (1860) is a model. B.’s intention to elevate the Renaissance to a prototype of civilization, apart from the debatable nature of the assertion, has led (and any other research inspired by a similar premise reaches the same results) to a monotonous and uniform leveling that excludes, in the various practical and spiritual activities of the Renaissance man, an ethical and moral evaluation of the individual and society, and thus makes it impossible to formulate a true historical judgment.