Aby Warburg, MNEMOSYNE. L’ATLANTE DELLE IMMAGINI, 2002

«The conscious creation of the distance between the ego and the external world is what we can designate as the fundamental act of human civilization» (Aby Warburg). The Mnemosyne Image Atlas is Aby Warburg’s latest unfinished project. Fruit of the work of an entire life, the work consists of about 2000 images and represents the synthesis of the research that Warburg had dedicated to the Rebirth of ancient Paganism in the more general context of the dynamic between word and image. Mnemosyne illustrates how some fundamental expressive values of Antiquity have been depicted in the representation of life in motion and gestures in the art of the European Renaissance. The Atlas of Images Mnemosyne, spiritual testament of one of the greatest historians of culture, is presented for the first time to the Italian reader with an essay that Nicholas Mann wrote especially for this edition, and with an important documentary appendix that sheds light on the genesis and structure of the work.