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... Warren Winter 9/21/05 AP European History Both the idea of historical rebirth and the use of the term renaissance to describe the process were distinctive products of the Renaissance itself. In the biography La Vita dé Più Eccellenti Architetti, Pittori, ed Scultori Italiani (popularly known as Lives of the Artists), Georgio Vasari used the term rinascità, meaning "rebirth," to describe the era in which he lived. In the 17th century the phrase "medium aevum" became current. The Dutch historian Georg Horn was the first to use it in a broad historical sense, and the German humanist Cellarius was the first to use the threefold division of history (Ancient, Medieval, Modern) as a principal of organization. Jacob Burckhardt predicted the historiographical dilemma of the Renaissance when he wrote: "To each eye, perhaps, the outlines of a great civilization present a different picture....The same studies which have served for this work might easily, in

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