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HI267 THE RENAISSANCE IN EUROPE
THE RENAISSANCE IN HISTORICAL THOUGHT
THE RENAISSANCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
SIGNIFICANCE
 ‘[The Renaissance is] the most intractable problem child of historiography.’
[Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance (New York, 1940), p. 2]
 ‘…the venerable Renaissance label has become little more than an administrative
convenience, a kind of blanket under which we huddle together less out of mutual
attraction than because, for certain purposes, we have nowhere else to go.’
[William J. Bouwsma, ‘The Renaissance and the Drama of Western History’,
American Historical Review 84 (1979), 1-15 (p. 3)]
QUESTIONS
 How was the Renaissance viewed until the 1960s?
 How was the concept of the Renaissance undermined in the 1960S and 1970s?
 Where are we now?
 Why should we continue to study the Renaissance?
HOW WAS THE RENAISSANCE VIEWED UNTIL THE 1960S?
Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: An Essay
John Jeffries Martin, ‘The Renaissance: Between Myth and History’, in John Jeffries
Martin, ed., The Renaissance: Italy and Abroad (London, 2002), pp. 1-23
HOW WAS THE CONCEPT OF THE RENAISSANCE UNDERMINED IN THE 1960S
AND 1970S?
E.H. Gombrich, ‘The Renaissance - Period or Movement?’, in A.G. Dickens et al.,
Background to the English Renaissance. Introductory Lectures (London, 1974), pp.9-30.
Paula Findlen and Kenneth Gouwens, ‘Introduction: The Persistence of the Renaissance’,
American Historical Review 103 (1998), pp. 51-54.
Joan Kelly-Gadol, ‘Did Women Have a Renaissance?’ in Renate Bridenthal and Claudia
Koonz, eds, Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, 1977), pp. 137-164.
Caroline Walker Bynum, "The Last Eurocentric Generation," Perspectives (February
1996)
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
Edward Muir, ‘The Italian Renaissance in America’, American Historical Review 100
(1995), 1095-1118.
WHY SHOULD WE CONTINUE TO STUDY THE RENAISSANCE?