In walking past Jacob Burckhardt’s house on the St. Alban-Vorstadt where he lived during his time as a Professor at the University, originally from 1848 to 1853 and later from 1858 to his retirement in 1893 (he died four years later), I am forced to reflect on how much the discipline of art history owes not to Germany – although Burckhardt was trained as an art historian under Ranke and Kugler in Berlin – but to the cast of mind of this liberal, sceptical Calvinist, brought up as a member of a prominent Basel family, the son of a minister at the Cathedral. Burkhardt first taught architectural history in Bonn, then published Der Cicerone in 1855. There is a picture of him walking past the Cathedral with a large portfolio of drawings under his arm, on his way to the University to teach his students of the virtues of humanism.
You could of course support your argument by citing fellow-Swiss Heinrich Wolfflin, Burckhardt’s pupil and successor as art history prof at Basel… But i don’t think Burckhardt was even a sceptical Calvinist; he was an anti-Calvinist, rightly calling Calvin’s ghastly regime in Geneva one of the worst in history…
Yes, I thought of adding Wölfflin, but prefer Burkhardt. Charles