DOI issue:
Nr. 3-4
DOI article:Recenzje
DOI article:Miziołek, Jerzy: [Rezension von: Aby Warburg, The renewal of pagan antiquity: contribution to the cultural history of the European Renaissance]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49350#0663
642
Jerzy Miziołek
2. Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, 1480s,
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
2. Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, lata 80. XV wieku, Florencja,
Galleria degli Uffizi
of scholars and of the generał public’1. Most of his
major papers either remain important contributions
to the understanding of Renaissance visual culture
or constantly stimulate further research. Such is also
the case of his ambitious, although never completed
project: the Menemosyne Atlas.
Aby Warburg (1866-1929) was born in Hamburg
into a wealthy Jewish family of bankers. He studied
art history with Henry Thode and Carl Justi, as well
as history of religion with Hermann Usenet. He con-
ceived the subject for his famous Ph. D. thesis con-
cerning two of Botticelli’s masterpieces the Primav-
era and the Birth of Venus in the winter of 1888-9
while attending the seminar of August Scharmasow
in Florence. He completed it in Strassburg with Hu-
bert Janitschek in 1891 and published two years lat-
er. Then, being so much immersed in the study of the
arts of Florentine Renaissance, he did something that
was virtually unimaginable for students of European
art in his day: he left for the United States spending
sevseral of months among the Pueblo Indians. His
research concerning the serpent ritual undertaken
during this trip were published almost thirty years
later. At the very beginning of the new century, while
living mostly in Florence, Warburg accomplished his
important papers dealing with both Italian and Flem-
ish art: ‘The Art of Portraiture and the Florentine
Bourgeoisie’ (1902), ‘Francesco Sassetti’s Last In-
junctions to his Son’ (1907), ‘Flemish Art and the
1 E. H. GOMBRICH, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biog-
raphy, London 1970, p. 322
Florentine Renaissance’ (1902), ‘Artistic Exchang-
es between North and South in the Fifteenth Centu-
ry’ (1905). His interest in stars resulted in the epoch-
making studies entitled ‘Italian Art and International
Astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara’ (1912)
and ‘Pagan-Antique Prophecy in Words and Images
in the Age of Luther’ (1920). Warburg’s serious psy-
chic torments in 1921 led to a three-year absence.
While he was recovering from the mental collapse
his private library was transformed into a public re-
search Institute. Fritz Saxl, its director, started in
1922 the first series of public lectures titled ‘The
Warburg Library and its scope’; the same year he
published an important paper in the Repertoriumfiir
Kunstwissenschaft under the title ‘Rinascimento
dell’antichita. Studien zu den arbeiten A. War-
burg’s’. In this lenghty study he presented a kind of
conspectus of Warburg’s work published until 1920
providing it with his own important discoveries.
Thus still in Warburg’s lifetime his approach to the
study of visual arts found its follower, receiving at
the same time a kind of learned commentary. In the
last years of his life Warburg conceived not only the
famous Mnemosyne Atlas but organized also an ex-
hibition of stamps. Images both smali and big fasci-
nated him to the very end. At the beginning of his
vocation he had dealt almost perfectly with literary
sources of the most famous paintings executed by
Botticelli while at the end of his life he turned his
attention to the arranging of selected images present-
ed on big plates in such a way that the ideas hidden
in them should become self-explanatory. A photo-
graph taken in 1925 depicts Warburg elegant and
Jerzy Miziołek
2. Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, 1480s,
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
2. Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, lata 80. XV wieku, Florencja,
Galleria degli Uffizi
of scholars and of the generał public’1. Most of his
major papers either remain important contributions
to the understanding of Renaissance visual culture
or constantly stimulate further research. Such is also
the case of his ambitious, although never completed
project: the Menemosyne Atlas.
Aby Warburg (1866-1929) was born in Hamburg
into a wealthy Jewish family of bankers. He studied
art history with Henry Thode and Carl Justi, as well
as history of religion with Hermann Usenet. He con-
ceived the subject for his famous Ph. D. thesis con-
cerning two of Botticelli’s masterpieces the Primav-
era and the Birth of Venus in the winter of 1888-9
while attending the seminar of August Scharmasow
in Florence. He completed it in Strassburg with Hu-
bert Janitschek in 1891 and published two years lat-
er. Then, being so much immersed in the study of the
arts of Florentine Renaissance, he did something that
was virtually unimaginable for students of European
art in his day: he left for the United States spending
sevseral of months among the Pueblo Indians. His
research concerning the serpent ritual undertaken
during this trip were published almost thirty years
later. At the very beginning of the new century, while
living mostly in Florence, Warburg accomplished his
important papers dealing with both Italian and Flem-
ish art: ‘The Art of Portraiture and the Florentine
Bourgeoisie’ (1902), ‘Francesco Sassetti’s Last In-
junctions to his Son’ (1907), ‘Flemish Art and the
1 E. H. GOMBRICH, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biog-
raphy, London 1970, p. 322
Florentine Renaissance’ (1902), ‘Artistic Exchang-
es between North and South in the Fifteenth Centu-
ry’ (1905). His interest in stars resulted in the epoch-
making studies entitled ‘Italian Art and International
Astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara’ (1912)
and ‘Pagan-Antique Prophecy in Words and Images
in the Age of Luther’ (1920). Warburg’s serious psy-
chic torments in 1921 led to a three-year absence.
While he was recovering from the mental collapse
his private library was transformed into a public re-
search Institute. Fritz Saxl, its director, started in
1922 the first series of public lectures titled ‘The
Warburg Library and its scope’; the same year he
published an important paper in the Repertoriumfiir
Kunstwissenschaft under the title ‘Rinascimento
dell’antichita. Studien zu den arbeiten A. War-
burg’s’. In this lenghty study he presented a kind of
conspectus of Warburg’s work published until 1920
providing it with his own important discoveries.
Thus still in Warburg’s lifetime his approach to the
study of visual arts found its follower, receiving at
the same time a kind of learned commentary. In the
last years of his life Warburg conceived not only the
famous Mnemosyne Atlas but organized also an ex-
hibition of stamps. Images both smali and big fasci-
nated him to the very end. At the beginning of his
vocation he had dealt almost perfectly with literary
sources of the most famous paintings executed by
Botticelli while at the end of his life he turned his
attention to the arranging of selected images present-
ed on big plates in such a way that the ideas hidden
in them should become self-explanatory. A photo-
graph taken in 1925 depicts Warburg elegant and