At ego malim somnia Politiani, quam quae Scala sobrius, summoque studio elaboravit
(Erasmus)Despite many an earnest effort to preserve the Burckhardtian idea of the Renaissance in the course of a full century of historical research (1960 was the centennial year of Burckhardt's masterpiece), the picture of this cultural unit has undoubtedly been more sharply focused in detail, but it has also grown so much more vague in its general lines as to cause a certain amount of despair with regard to the possibility of defining this period in precise distinction from the middle ages. A global ‘definition’ of the period (as of any other period) has been proved to be impossible. The ‘idea’ of the age, the positive formulation of its spirit and essential characteristics must be the result of a view of the ensemble of its various elements, many of which, taken in isolation, can find sources and even relative parallels in preceding centuries.