The Italian Renaissance in the German Historical Imagination, 1860-1930

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Germany's bourgeois elites became enthralled by the civilization of Renaissance Italy. As their own country entered a phase of critical socioeconomic changes, German historians and writers reinvented the Italian Renaissance as the onset of a heroic modernity: a glorious dawn that ushered in an age of secular individualism, imbued with ruthless vitality and a neo-pagan zest for beauty. The Italian Renaissance in the German Historical Imagination is the first comprehensive account of the debates that shaped the German idea of the Renaissance in the seven decades following Jacob Burckhardt's seminal study of 1860. Based on a wealth of archival material and enhanced by more than one hundred illustrations, it provides a new perspective on the historical thought of Imperial and Weimar Germany, and the formation of a concept that is still with us today.

Author: Martin A. Ruehl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 08/30/2018
Pages: 342
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.72d
ISBN: 9781108468152

About the Author
Ruehl, Martin A.: - "Martin A. Ruehl is Lecturer in German intellectual history at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and a Fellow of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge. His publications include Quentin Skinner: Visionen des Politischen (2009, edited with M. Heinz), A Poet's Reich: Politics and Culture in the George Circle (2011, edited with M. Lane), and Hitler - Films from Germany: History, Cinema and Politics since 1945 (2012, edited with K. Machtans)."