Tra inattualità e connessione spirituale. Nota sull'apolitia di Jacob Burckhardt

This paper discusses the nature of Burckhardt's apolitia, and raises the question as to the real meaning of his detachment from political things. The first part presents some major interpretations of Burckhardt alleged "Greek" unpolitical attitude (Ernst Cassirer, Karl Löwith, Albert Salomon, Benedetto Croce), and shows how these authors understood Burckhardt's contemplative stance almost as a philosophical one. The second part offers a brief historical reconstruction of Burckhardt process of detachment, mostly drawing on his correspondence. The third part analyses the meaning of Burckhardt's transcendence of the present in the past, namely, the way in which the historian wins a critical perspective on the present by concentrating on history. This process of detachment from the present is interpreted in its "political" aspects; as shown in the fourth part, Burckhardt's apolitia amounts to a critical movement aimed at the recovery of the spiritual connection with the past. In this way, the paper maintains that his apolitia is, in truth, in service of a higher ideal of humanity, namely, a specific idea of civilization which must be understood in contradistinction to barbarism. The essence of barbarism is the absence of historic consciousness; it is only the awareness of a fundamental continuity in the flowing of human things that allows the flourishing of man's spiritual life.