Abstract

The popularisation of the term “Renaissance” in the German-speaking world owes much to Jacob Burckhardt. Until 1840, however, the use of this period term still reflected its French origins. Burckhardt himself, as a scholar still in his twenties, applied it (albeit with some reservations about the etymology) primarily to sixteenth-century architecture and ornamentation in France and in neighbouring regions. Only a decade later did he redefine the term and associate it enthusiastically with Italian art and architecture. Burckhardt’s early use of the word “Renaissance” conveys much of the fascination that the simultaneously hybrid and opulent French art of the decades around 1500 held in nineteenth-century Europe.

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