The Italian Renaissance in the Estimates of Emile Gebhart and Dilthey

Abstract

T HE RECENT, almost simultaneous, publication of two works dealing with the history of the concept Renaissance, one by an American, Wallace K. Ferguson,1 and the other by a Dutchman, Schulte Nordhold,2 prompts me to call attention to the two most significant notices elicited by the publication of Burckhardt's Kultur der Renaissance in its original text (1860) and in its first French translation (1885). They are, respectively, by Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) and by Emile Gebhart (1839-1908). The Dilthey piece appeared in 1862.3 The compte rendu by Gebhart was featured in 1885 in the Revue des Deux Mondes, under the title La Renaissance italienne et la philosophie de l'histoire.4