The Library of Aby Warburg

From the beginning, Warburg's research interests were wide-ranging, encompassing art history, astrology, the afterlife of the antique, Renaissance festivals, the performative culture of trionfi, magic, symbolism, mythography and several other subjects. Many of these topics had only attracted his attention in and through the activity of collecting.

The mere act of bringing together books (and images) in his private library allowed issues to be raised, contiguities to be revealed and borders between disciplines to be transgressed. Warburg, however, was a collector of knowledge rather than of objects; and although he was a keen owner of books, they were less important to him as physical items than as necessary instruments in a process of scholarly research. As he put it in 1918, his books served him as &ldquo;working tools in a scientific laboratory&rdquo;</p>