When people hear the word "Renaissance" they think of purple and gold and beautiful artwork, magnificent sculptures and ingenious ideas that came from this time period. A lot of people's perceptions of this time period reflect what historian scholar, Jacob Burckhardt describes in his work, "Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy." In this he defines the Renaissance as "individualism" and "modernity," but there are many arguments that surround this idea.
             Peter Burke, a professor of Cultural History at Cambridge, wrote an article titled, "The Myth of the Renaissance." Burke argues Burckhardt's ideas about the so-called Renaissance. He believes that idea of the Renaissance is a myth, because Burckhardt objects to the dramatic contrast between The Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He considers them to be exaggerated, ignoring the many innovations made in The Middle Ages, the traditional attitudes that survived into the 16th century and Italian interest in painting, music and other countries especially the Netherlands. (Burke, 2)
             Burke describes Burckhardt's characters and cultural change in his work, metaphors, but doesn't blame it solely on Burckhardt for his ideas, because people that lived during that time period were "revealing as well as misleading," (Burke, 3). "Burkhardt's mistake was to accept the scholars and artists of this period at their own valuation, to take this story of rebirth at its face value and to elaborate it into a book,"(Burke, 3). The artists and scholars of this time celebrated their revival of learning, renovation, rebirth, re-awakening, etc; but these men owed a lot of what they knew to the Middle Ages.
             Burkhardt continues his argument of the Middle Ages and Renaissance being more closely in common than one can imagine. He says that, "the 'Renaissance men' w
             ...