Warburg Bibliothek : Editoriale di Engramma 198

Engramma n. 198, Warburg Bibliothek is a journey through the years of Warburg Library’s life as a philosophical object and a living part of Aby Warburg's intellectual history and the survival of his thought. This issue could be seen as an anthology in which texts from the Warburgkreis about the Library are collected and presented for the first time in Italian translation. The first essays are from the Hamburg period: Fritz Saxl in Das Nachleben der Antike Zur Einfühurung in die Bibliothek Warburg (1921), first italian translation, edited by Michela Maguolo, La sopravvivenza dell’antico. Introduzione alla Biblioteca Warburg, briefly summarises the salient aspects of the Warburg Library, highlighting a multidisciplinary approach to the study of Antiquity; Saxl’s Die Bibliothek Warburg und ihr Ziel (1923), first Italian translation, edited by Michela Maguolo, La biblioteca Warburg e il suo fine, explains the particular approach to the history of the survival of Antiquity; Die Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg in Hamburg (1930), first Italian translation, edited by Michela Maguolo, La Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg in Amburgo (1930) is a brief presentation of the Hamburg Institute. Other essays are from the British period: Notes on the Warburg Library (1934), first Italian translation, edited by Giulia Zanon, Appunti sulla Biblioteca Warburg, Appunti sulla biblioteca Warburg (1934) is written by Gertrud Bing in the aftermath of the arrival of the Warburg Library in London. Bing describes simply but fully the genesis, history, structure, mission, and meaning of the library conceived by Aby Warburg; In The Warburg Institute Classification Scheme (1935), first Italian translation, edited by Giulia Zanon, Il sistema di classificazione del Warburg Institute, Edgar Wind briefly explains the system of classification used in the Warburg Library. The History of Warburg’s Library, 1886-1944, Italian translation, edited by Michela Maguolo, La storia della Biblioteca di Aby Warburg, is Fritz Saxl’s major account on the Warburg Library, written in 1943-1944, and published for the first time by Ernst Gombrich as an Appendix to his Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (1970). Few years later, Fritz Saxl publishes Das Warburg Institute (1946), first Italian translation, edited by Michela Maguolo, L’Instituto Warburg, with a really brief presentation of the Warburg Library. Two texts are extracted from 1993 book Porträt aus Bucher, edited by Michael Diers: in Porträt aus Büchern. Stichworte, Diers explains the history of the Warburg Institute after its founder’s death; in Die Bibliothek Warburg und ihr Forschungsprogramm Martin Warnke tells us about the Warburg Library and its research activity. Salvatore Settis in Dromenon: comportamento ritualizzato questions the meaning of one of the 'key words' of the Warburg Library: Dromenon as ritualised behaviour. The second part of this Engramma issue focuses on the present and the future of the Library. In Mind, Memory and Museum Bill Sherman, director in charge of the Warburg Institute responds to suggestions by Ada Naval and Giulia Zanon on the Institute with special attention towards the Warburg Library. Warburg Bibliothek closes with Philippe Despoix’s Construire des espaces de voisinage reconstructs the original steps that established the Warburg Library as a 'laboratory' for collective research into the ways in which images and knowledge have been transmitted since antiquity.