This book is one of the best accounts of the colorful period of Italian life and thought between 1350 and 1550. Here is a brilliant panorama of Renaissance life — rich in its detailed account of the arts, fashions, manners, and thought of the time — sparkling and vigorous in the spirit of the new modern age. But if Jacob Burckhardt knew well how to convey the color of the period, he was also able to give generations of readers more profound insights into the relationship between the individual and the forces around him. The combination makes this book one of the few great classics of history.