The Civilization was well received by scholars of history and art. Early translated into Italian, English, and French, it was already widely read all over the world in Burckhardt's own lifetime, but the fast-growing number of new editions after his death proves that it was the following generation that took the book fully to heart.

The experiences of wars and revolutions in our own times make us look at Jacob Burckhardt's work with fresh eyes, and it is surprising to find that the The Civilization has not lost any of its radiance under this new questioning. It has remained the greatest single book written on the history of Italy between 1350 and 1550 -- a period which proved so fateful for the development of Western civilization. It created methods of reviving the past which will have a lasting influence on the writing of history. Finally, it opened a deep view of the relationship between the human individual and the forces of history.