Giulia Bordignon - Maria Bergamo

Iconographies and Pathosformeln of Pain in Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas

A Pathway through Plates 5, 6, 41, 41a, 42, 53, 56 and 58

UDC: 7.04Warburg, A. Giulia Bordignon

Iuav University, Venice, Italy
giuliab@iuav.it

Maria Bergamo
Procuratoria di San Marco Archive, Venice, Italy
maria.bergamo@yahoo.it

Considering the human expressive need of representing pathos “from helpless melancholy to murderous cannibalism”, Aby
Warburg defined the hermeneutic device of Pathosformeln as “gestures to the superlative degree” that appear fixed in arte-
facts by means of figurative formulae since the earliest times, and as imprints (“engrams”) that can be ‘reactivated’ by artists
in various periods. We find a systematic consideration of these iconographic formulae in Warburg’s last, unfinished work,
the Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (1929). The Atlas is, in fact, a collection of expressions of human dynamism, enclosed within a
labyrinth of images that spreads from antiquity to the contemporary age. This paper aims to offer a reading of the different
forms of iconography of pain that can be found in the Atlas: from the “ancient pre-coined expressions” of suffering in Plates
5 and 6, to the “re-emergence of the Dionysian pathos of destruction” in Plates 41 and 41a - especially through the figure of
Laocoön. Finally, in Plate 42 we follow the “energetic and semantic inversion of the pathos of suffering”: the frenzied despair
of Mary Magdalene as “Maenad under the Cross”, and the theme of melancholy and meditation, which from the “Theater of
Death” continues towards the figure of the intellectual genius, “son of Saturn”, in Plates 53, 56 and 58.

Keywords: Warburg, Bilderatlas, Pathosformeln, Maenad, sacrifice, Laocoön, complaint, melancholy, iconography, pain

Antike Vorprägungen (ancient pre-coined expressions) of suffering in Plates 5 and 6

In 1914, Aby Warburg – one of the founders of modern Kultuwissenschaft (cultural studies) and iconology
– recognized that “even if the sorrowful Laocoön group had not been discovered, the Renaissance would have
had to invent it, precisely because of its moving rhetoric and pathos”.1 Considering the human expressive need
of representing pathos – in its many meanings “from helpless melancholy to murderous cannibalism”2 – Warburg
defined the hermeneutic device of Pathosformeln as “gestures to the superlative degree” that appear fixed in arte-
facts by means of figurative formulae since the earliest of times, and as imprints (“engrams”) that can be ‘reactivat-
ed’ by artists in various periods.3 We find a systematic consideration of these iconographic formulae in Warburg’s
last, unfinished work, the Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (1929), consisting of a series of plates made up of photographic
montages that bring together various works of art and artefacts. The Atlas is, in fact, a collection of expressions of
human dynamism, enclosed within a labyrinth of images that spreads from antiquity to the contemporary age.
By exploring the permanence of Antiquity in Italian and Northern European Renaissance art, Warburg questions
Western tradition, unveiling its mechanisms, its nerve centres and its cultural DNA.
From Plate 4 to plate 8 Warburg records the “pre-coined expressions”, i.e. the archaeological models presented
in a compact repertoire that secured in iconographic patterns the expressive values of suffering and mourning.4

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While the objects of Plate 5 are the pre-coinages, which convey the “pathos of destruction”5 in its multifarious
variants (images of fury, fright, pain and sorrow), especially embodied in mythical female figures, the protago-
nists of Plate 6 are the twisted bodies of the victims of rape and sacrifice.6
In Plate 5 we see on the left (from top to bottom of the montage: fig. 1) the pathetic flight of Niobe and her
children; moving to the right, we see Medea, sorceress and murderous mother par excellence. Her fury is a ‘cold’, al-
most Saturnine, passion: she is not depicted while killing her children, but just before the bloody act, meditating in
grief over her decision (fig. 2). The outbreak of violence is rather presented by the images pinned further on the right
of the panel, illustrating the myths of Orpheus and Pentheus slain by the Maenads. We can note that the formula of
pathos here involves both victims and executioners as a whole: the victim with his knee pointed to the ground, try-
ing to defend himself, the Bacchae with arms raised ready to hit, or grabbing their ‘prey’ by the head (fig. 3).
In the last row of the plate, Roman reliefs – mostly sarcophagi – deal on one side with the subject of the
rape of Proserpina (her body bending backwards on Hade’s carriage) and on the other side with scenes of mourn-
ing at the deathbed of Alkestis or Meleager, where all degrees of emotional reaction to bereavement are fixed in
Pathosformeln, from the gesture of melancholy (head leaning on a hand) to that of frenzied despair.
The passage to Hades marks also the passage to Plate 6 (fig. 4): here we can see scenes of the sacrifice of
Polixena that shares its dynamic pathos with the episode of the rape of Cassandra, priestess of Apollo. The whole
plate is dominated by images connected with ritual sacrifice: in the centre of the plate a frenzied Maenad in an
act of sacrificing is paired with Laocoön, the priest that is in turn sacrificed (fig. 5). In his paper on The serpent
ritual Warburg writes: “The vengeance of the gods, wrought upon their priest and his two sons by means of the
destroying serpents, makes this famous composition of antiquity a vivid embodiment of dire human suffering.
The prophet priest, seeking to aid his people by warning them against the wiles of the Greeks, falls a prey to the
vengeance of the partial gods. So, the death of the father with his two sons becomes a symbol of the antique Pas-
sion; death as revenge wrought by demons without justice and without hope of salvation. That is the tragic pes-
simism of antiquity”.7 The figure of Laocoön is juxtaposed with images of religious ceremonies promising hope
after death: offerings connected with the worship of Cybele and Isis, the funerary conclamatio and ritual dancing,
that emphasise the gestures and postures of female figures in motion.
At the core of the Atlas, the themes and figures of these ‘archaeological’ panels on “pre-coined expressions”
reappear, at a distance of centuries, keeping unchanged their pathetic eloquence. In Plate 41 Warburg recognizes
the unleashing of Dionysian violence in the rediscovery of the story of Medea and in the myth of Orpheus; in Plate
41a the tense expression of Laocoön becomes the paradigm of the “pathos of suffering”.

Vernichtungspathos (pathos of annihilation) in Plate 41

The first images on the left of Plate 41 show the persistence of the myth of Medea in the Middle Ages,8 as
it was spread by manuscripts containing the works by Seneca, Ovid and Boccaccio, rather than by Euripidean
testimonies. While illuminated texts show Medea both as a sorceress and as a murderer, Renaissance art seems to
look back at ancient sculptural models of sarcophagi, and employs the posture of ‘meditative’ Medea to outline
the figure of the caring mother rather than the one of the cruel parent: Medea accompanying her children be-
comes the devout follower of Christ or Saints, or even the personification of Caritas, enacting what Warburg calls
“energetic inversion” of the engram inherited from Antiquity.9 Only Ercole de Roberti’s work seems to recognize
and faithfully convey the highly dramatic decision of Euripides’s character (fig. 6).
As we have seen in Plate 5, the expression of violence and suffering in Antiquity was tellingly embodied by
the punishment of Orpheus: during the Renaissance this very same myth becomes widespread, representing, in
Warburg’s words, the “releasing of pathos”. The dynamis of the Maenads seems to be borrowed by soldiers in the
episode of the Flagellation of Christ (fig. 7). Nonetheless, Orpheus reappears in the Italian Renaissance both in
Dionysian and Apollonian features: as a suffering victim, and as an embodiment of harmony and music.

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The juxtaposition, within the plate’s montage of the image of Medea by De Roberti with that of the Flagel-
lation by Signorelli suggests a compositional reversal in the interrelationship between victim and executioner:
the impetus of the mother-murderer with her children-victims, is juxtaposed with the suffering of the Son-victim
surrounded by his killers. The sacrifice of Medea’s sons represents a sort of mirror image, which confirms once
more the Dionysian significance of the sacrifice of the Son of God. The henchmen surrounding Christ in Signo-
relli’s painting assume the same frenzied postures of Maenads that kill the defenceless Orpheus in the central
section of the plate: on the other hand, one should remember that since the early Christian age Orpheus was
precisely intended as a pagan prefiguration of the Saviour (fig. 8).
On the upper right part of the panel, Warburg points at the re-emergence of the ancient pathos of fright and
destruction, showing once more its persistence as well as its “polarity”: in representing the expressive strength of
David, the biblical hero that subdues Goliath, Andrea del Castagno seems to be inspired by the figure of one of
the Niobides fleeing in fright from Plate 5.
The pathos of destruction that binds victim and executioner is straightforward in the act of grabbing – by
the head, or by an arm – in the depictions of the sacrifice of Polixena and of Herakles, according to a pattern that
lasts from Pisanello to Cinquecento’s medals.
On the lower right part of the panel, the continuity of the figure of Medea transmitted by Latin texts en-
hances her role as a sorceress and priestess of Hekate, in an age – at the turn of 15th century – in which sorcery is
an current subject, particularly in German art.

Leidenspathos (pathos of suffering) in plate 41a

The opening of Plate 41a is devoted to the permanence of the figure of Laocoön in illuminated manuscripts
from the 12th to 15th centuries10: in these early pictures the pathos of suffering is not yet emphasised, and still
around 1450 the Trojan priest attacked by serpents has the noble features of Emperor John Paleologus rather
than those of a man suffering in the spasms of death.
The expressive needs of the Renaissance, though, soon lead to the representation of pain with a strong pa-
thetic emphasis, well before the discovery of the Vatican marble in 1506, as is evident in Pisanello’s and Filippino
Lippi’s works, borrowed straight away from ancient reliefs, as is evident from their ‘archaeological’ study-drawings.
Like the Christian episode of the Conversion of St Paul that Warburg includes in this plate, Laocoön’s pathos is not
the result of an earthly punishment, of the confrontation between human beings (like in the previous montage
on Medea and Orpheus): it is the consequence of a heavenly command. Laocoön is thus an ‘absolute’ victim, with
no visible executioner, apart the snake. An animal that, in Lippi’s fresco, embodies temptation and sin, i.e. internal,
spiritual, suffering (fig. 9). The grimace of sorrow that twists Adam’s face, as well as Pisanello’s characters ‘all’antica’,
is the utmost expression of the re-emergence of “the tragic pessimism of antiquity”, in Warburg’s words.
From the time of its unearthing in Rome, the Vatican Laocoön became a trendy subject that indeed satis-
fied the “hunger for antiquity” of the time, as the plate’s middle section shows: reproduced in a number of media,
from dishes to luxurious parade shields, from bronze copies on a small scale to finely chiselled intaglios, the image
was widely spread, especially through engravings. These soon produced new works of art, variants of both the
pathetic group and its background, inserting the priest and his sons in different landscapes as living characters:
a process that, bringing back to (artistic) life ancient sculpture, testifies to its expressive value. The bearded man
entangled by snakes finally becomes, in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, the example of ‘Pain’ par excellence (fig. 10). This
is also attested by a letter dated 1537 by Pietro Aretino that expresses in the ancient group a climax of pathos,
from fear to death: “The two serpents, in attacking the three figures, produce the most striking semblances of fear,
suffering and death. The youth embraced in the coils is fearful; the old man struck by the fangs is in torment; the
child who has received the poison, dies”.11

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2 Medea before the Assassination of her Children,

fresco, Pompei, Casa dei Dioscuri, 62-79 A.D.,
Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale (MA Plate 5)

1 Mnemosyne Atlas, Plate 5: “Types of ancient pre-coinages 2. From the

Magna Mater to the Mater Dolorosa: female figures of Dionysiac pathos”

3 Death of Pentheus, fresco, 45-79 A.D.,

Pompei, Casa dei Vettii (MA Plate 5)

4 Mnemosyne Atlas, Plate

6: “Types of ancient pre-
coinages 3. The sacrificial
raptus”; Mnemosyne Atlas,
Plate 41: “Christ as Orpheus,
the Witch as a Nymph: the
re-appearance of the pathos
of destruction”; Mnemosyne
Atlas, Plate 41a: “Invention of
the Laocoön”

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 Bergamo-Bordignon, Iconographies and Pathosformeln of Pain

5 Laocoön, marble group, 2nd century

BC–1st century AD (?) Roma, Musei
Vaticani (MA Plate 6)

6 E. de’ Roberti, The Wife

of Hasdrubal and Her
Children (before 1930
known as Medea and
Her Children), tempera
on panel, c. 1490,
Washington, National
Gallery of Art
(MA Plate 41)

7 L. Signorelli, Flagellation of Christ, 8 Master from Ferrara, Death of Orpheus, etching, c. 1465,
tempera on panel, 1480-81, Milano, Hamburg, Kunsthalle (MA Plate 41)
Pinacoteca di Brera (MA Plate 41)

9 Laocoön as
Embodyment of
Suffering, from
Ripa, 1603, p. 102.
(MA Plate 41a)

10 F. Lippi, Adam
as Patriarch,
fresco, 1494-
1495, Firenze,
Chiesa di S.
Maria Novella
(MA Plate 41a)

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During the 16th century, Laocoön finds its way towards Northern European countries: the etchings on the lower
right corner of Plate 41a confirm the fortune of the character in European art, both in its attire alla francese, i.e. still
in medieval clothes, and in its appearance all’antica derived from the Vatican marble.12

Leidenspathos in energetischer Inversion (pathos of suffering in energetic reversal) in Plate 42

In Plate 42 Warburg recognizes the persistence of ancient pagan figures in mourning within Christian ico-
nography (fig. 11). The subjects on the plate are the energetic and semantic inversion of the pathos of suffering
- Mary Magdalene as “Maenad under the Cross” and the theme of melancholic meditation within the “Theatre of
death”, as we can understand from notes to Plate 42: “Energetic and semantic inversions of the emotional formu-
lae of suffering: orgiastic exaltation as a model for mournful despair (the Magdalene as ‘Maenad under the Cross’);
annihilation of the victim as a model for miraculous healing (St Anthony heals, Pentheus). Theme of mourning:
the pre-coinage portrayal of heroic threnos – ancient funeral song for the hero – (Meleager, Alcestis, Prometheus
– see Plate 5) celebrates both the death of middle-class men in the 15th Century, and the divine death of Christ;
melancholic meditation on death”.13 As we noted above, in Warburg’s method the Pathosformeln are gestures of
human emotions, figurative formulae fixed in artistic works.14 These figures crossed the centuries as imprints – “en-
grams” – in cultural memory, but the most interesting point is the peculiar relation between form and meaning. In
fact, Pathosformeln are not univocal, and they can change their meaning from age to age, in single masterpieces,
while still preserving their iconography. The artistic language of the Hellenistic-Roman figures privileges precisely
the pathetic accentuation of gestures, and the artists of the early Renaissance returned to this ‘repertoire’ of for-
mulae of pathos. The consciousness and knowledge in using or re-using the ancient models is a very complex
topic in art history,15 but Warburg focused on a particular hermeneutic concept, the “anthitetical expressions”.16
This definition comes from Charles Darwin’s theory on The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals17 pub-
lished in London a few years before Warburg’s work. Warburg applies the Darwinian principle of “antithetical ex-
pression” to the history of posthumous life of the ancient formulae of pathos. In studying images, he clarifies how
some Pathosformeln drawn from antiquity are subjected in their transmission to a process of “polarization” of their
significance. This polarization can vary from the original semantic range of the figurative model up to reaching an
opposite expressive meaning, as a total “energetic inversion”, while maintaining its formal identity substantially
unchanged.18 “The dynamics of ancient art are left in heritage in a state of maximum but not polarized tension,
with respect to the active or passive energetic charge, to the artist who can react, imitate or remember. It is only
the contact with the new age that produces polarization. This can lead to a radical inversion of the meaning that
they had in classical Antiquity”.19
In Plate 42 the “new age that produces polarization” is the Renaissance period, but specifically considered
in Christian art. The images are homogeneous by dating – 1460-1520 – and above all by subjects: Crucifixion,
Deposition, Complaint at Christ death, or allegorical representations of the burials of Florentine high bourgeoisie.
The same themes that in Plate 5 were embodied by “pre-coined” gestures are now translated form the pagan to a
Christian context: pain and sorrow, annihilation and fury, mourning and meditation. In the Bilderatlas interpreta-
tion proposed by the Seminario Mnemosyne, the group of Plates 40-42 is entitled “Path VI. Dionysiac formulae of
emotions”.20
In fact, the first image that opens Plate 42 is a relief by Donatello for the altar of St Anthony in Padua, 1446-
1448, which represents Saint Anthony healing an irascible youth. The body of the miraculously saved person is
shaken in convulsive movements, while the Franciscan confreres retain and accompany him towards healing: it
is the same posture of Pentheus torn and killed by the Maenads as appears in the ancient sarcophagus in Plate
5. This is the “energetic and semantic inversion”: the annihilation of the victim becomes a model for miraculous
healing, thus the torture of pagan antiquity changes into Christian salvation.

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 Bergamo-Bordignon, Iconographies and Pathosformeln of Pain

In Warburg’s perspective on the renewal of pagan antiquity the dichotomy between ‘Christian’ and ‘pagan’
art - as well in Renaissance thinking - is totally outdated.
The semantic emancipation from the ancient model does not imply the rejection of its figurative vocabu-
lary: indeed, modern art demonstrates the ability to inherit tradition, accepting and re-elaborating the gestural
alphabet in new expressions, in new meanings. The modern artwork is rendered more effective the more it is able
to express the contrast inherent in the dialogue between formal fidelity to the ancient model and the freedom of
semantic reinterpretation in the copy.
The small image placed at the bottom centre of Plate 42 is a paradigmatic example: the fresco painted in
1500-1502 by Luca Signorelli in Orvieto’s Cathedral represents a Lamentation on Death of Christ, but in a detail en
grisaille – the sarcophagus in the background – we can see another subject, embodying the same pathos: The
death of Meleager (fig. 12). This is one of the ways of transmission of the past to the present;21 images come out
from the artist’s antiquary sketchbooks to enter in the – present – displayed scene. It is evident how the represen-
tation en grisaille is the medium showing this passage.22

The Theatre of Death in Plate 42

As the example of Meleager’s myth and its revival over the centuries shows, the images of the Complaint or
Pietà are very ancient, since a natural event of human life such as death is hypostatized in ritual acts ever since an-
cestral times.23 Primordial images such as the praeficae of ancient threnoi, or new iconongraphies such as Vesper-
bild or the Man of Sorrows are perhaps the most immediate and recognizable Pathosformeln in cultural memory.
But in this plate, the subject of mourning and suffering is displayed in a very peculiar way: it’s a network
of Pathosformeln that link, chase each other and skip from one image to another, following their changing and
evolution. Plate 42 is a sort of analytical catalogue of representations of pain, and through the movements of the
different characters a real “Theater of Death” is staged. We tried to read the Atlas’ plate, looking for intersections
and similitudes starting from the “body of sorrow”.24 The physicality of the dead body is a powerfully persistent
presence in the plate, and it is shown always in the foreground. The corpse is represented in a sort of anticlimax,
from the relaxed limbs to the lifeless arms that, supported by mourners, tellingly reveal the heaviness of the
body, whose mass is enhanced by the funerary shroud (fig. 13). Death finally brings to an end the dynamism of
existence, and the body progressively slows, ending in the rigor mortis. From the fighting body of the opening im-
age, the bronze relief by Donatello with a ‘choral’ and dynamic great scene, movement develops until the closing
scene of perfect stasis, represented by Carpaccio’s Meditation on Dead Christ (fig. 14).
The “Theatre of Death” in this plate has a pace that alternates between movement and stasis. As in the syn-
tax of music and tragedy, dramatic action is achieved by a two-way counterpoint, between death (the impotent
contemplation of the fate of the body), and the gesturally powerful dance of phobic passion. In Plate 42, the bi-
nary rhythm between movement and stasis can be traced in the general structure of the composition, as we can
see isolating some figures (fig. 15).
The syntax of the Pathosformeln reveals a very definite itinerary that places the gestures of death and those
of grief in a sort of opposition with each other. The progression towards total motionlessness of the body (dying,
abandoned and finally stiffened) is countered, on the other hand, by the progression towards the dynamism of
pain. Various kinds of reactions are all around the ‘body of sorrow’, but each one is codified: there are those who
pray, who cry hysterically, who turn their arms to heaven, who press their hands to their chest, who enter run-
ning, who cover their faces, those who take shelter under a mantle or in meditation. The melancholy posture of
grieving grows in tragedy, and finally explodes with despair in the impetuous figure that bursts onto the scene
with the emphatic gesture of open arms. But in a sort of circular route, the movement of sorrow is finally frozen
into the posture of silent self-containment, represented by the veiled figure at a distance from the passion scene,
who, assailed by unbearable grief, distances herself from the theatre of death (fig. 16).

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The Maenad under the Cross: orgiastic extroversion of pain in Plate 42

One figure stands out among the others, appearing as the highest degree in the ascending climax of the
fury of pathos. Nothing can contain the despair of this female figure. Her head is uncovered with wavy hair, her
shoulders are bare, and her billowing garments reveal the shape of her breasts. Showing up among the women
who accompany Christ under the cross, or standing at the deathbed of the deceased, the anachronistic shape of
her clothes seems to be out of tune, as well as her sensual posture.
“Who is she? Where is she from? Where did I meet her before? I mean, fifteen hundred years ago” wrote
Jolles to Warburg.25 She’s the Nymph who once again bursts onto the scene, with her breeze-swept robes, her
accessories in motion, breaking the rigorous and tight ambiance, and her useless, charming clothes are stirred by
the wind of Antiquity. In Warburg’s theory, the Nymph is the personification of the Eindringen der Antike, the Irrup-
tion of Antiquity, she seems to walk through the entire Atlas dressed each time in different disguises: an angel, a
victory, Judith, the spring, a servant, Salome, a Maenad. The young woman enters the scenes as if she is coming
from another place that is in fact another time in history. The interest of this figure, therefore, consists in the fact
that it leads to the problem of time in the history of art, more specifically to the dimension of anachronism.26
In Plate 42 she’s the ancient Maenad, the Dionysian figure of pagan ecstasy who lends her posture and
dynamis to the supreme despair of Magdalene at the foot of the Cross in the 15th century (fig. 17). In Bertoldo di
Giovanni’s Crucifixion three versions of Mary Magdalene are depicted in successive ‘frames’ of despair, a sort of
emphatic paroxysmal dance. Magdalene / Maenad is one of the energetischer Inversion, “energetic reversal”, of
ancient Pathosformeln: ecstasy becomes pain, dance becomes spasm, the ferocious orgy turns into a dramatic cry.
The Maenad under the Cross is the title of an article by Edgar Wind and Frederick Antal, that reads: “It would
be difficult to imagine anything further removed from classical antiquity than the figures painted by Grünewald
for the Issenheim altar. Yet when Fraenger tries to find adequate words to describe Mary Magdalene under the
Cross the memory of the old symbol makes itself felt and he calls her eine Schmerzmänade, quoting a Latin hymn,
which may have been present in the minds of many Renaissance artists who depicted the saint in the attitude of
a Bacchante: ”Fac me cruce inebriari et cruore filii”27 (fig. 18).
An image like that of the Nymph / Maenad, so full of expressive energy, is a ‘marker’ that re-emerges and
stands out in the mechanisms of cultural tradition: “The unhindered release of expressive bodily movement, es-
pecially as it occurred amongst the followers of the gods of intoxication […], encompasses the entire range of
dynamic expressions of the life […], and in all mimetic actions, as in the thiasotic cult, it is possible to detect the
faint echo of such abyssal devotion in the artistic depiction of the actions of walking, running, dancing, grasping,
fetching, or carrying. The thiasotic hallmark is an absolutely essential and uncanny characteristic of these expres-
sive values as they spoke to the eye of the Renaissance artist from the sarcophagi of antiquity”.28

Melancholy ex maerore: intellectual introversion of pain in Plates 53, 56, 58

In psychic behaviour - writes Warburg - the opposite ‘extreme pole’ of orgiastic devotion is the “Tendenz
zur ruhigen Schau”, quiet contemplation. In Plate 42’s ‘‘Theatre of Death’’ this posture is often embodied by John
the Evangelist, who occupies a place on the margins of the Complaint scene, with a specific expressive feature:
detachment and self-composure, the face leaning on the hand (fig. 19). In the wasteland portrayed by Carpaccio,
in which the solitary figure of an aged, melancholic man keeps a distant vigil over the rigid body of Christ, John
the Evangelist emerges silently in his grief, set apart and shrouded in his cloak.
This posture characterizes the enigmatic central figure of one of the best known engravings of the Renais-
sance, the Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer, the main image of Plate 58.29 We can see the same head-on-hand motif in
the postures of the figures of pain, of meditation, of thought: the mourners on sarcophagi, the image of the River

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God, John under the Cross, the Evangelists, the apostles asleep on the Mount of Olives. Dürer’s engraving was
a topic of major interest for the scholars of the Warburgkreis: in 1923, with Warburg as supervisor, the young
Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl published in the “Studies of the Warburg Library” Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I. This
research will merge with important additions many years later, in the volume Saturn and Melancholy. Studies in the
History of Natural Philosophy, Religion and Art, with Raymond Klibansky as co-author.30
According to ancient sources, the melancholic affection is caused by the excess of μέλαινα χολή, melaina
khole, atra bilis, or kahra sevda in Arab, the ‘‘black humor’’.31 According to the research carried out by the Warburg-
kreis, the melancholic character can assume different meanings, positive or negative, depending on the histor-
ical-cultural context in which it is considered: in the Middle Ages the attitude of saturnine temperament is con-
sidered as a capital vice, assimilated to acedia, but it is also felt as pain. In fact, melancholy has an objective cause
ex maerore – i. e. originating from pain and mourning – that in this humoral attitude assumes the form of closure:
a reaction of containment rather than explosion. Precisely in this dialectical contraposition, the Pathosformel of
restrained pain is intensified to the highest degree.
In 15th century humanism, however, melancholy takes on a positive value: according to ancient science, the
melancholic personality reveals also paradoxical – opposite – results: it is not always destined to depression and
apathy, but to excellence in human activities as well. The black humor increases the contemplative and reflective
state that yields to the creative process - the mood of the artistic genius. This inversion of sign in the evaluation
of the melancholic type outlines the figure of the Renaissance intellectual: “born under Saturn” but capable of
freeing himself from subjection to the demon of sloth, and bending the Saturnine virtue in the sense of the ex-
ceptional liberty of artistic and political genius.
Following the images of melancholy in the Atlas, particularly in Plate 53, we can see how the iconography
of the Muses, deities in charge of artistic creation, is divided into two polarities: the ‘festive Muse’ inspiring dance
and theatre, moving with graceful steps and fluttering robes (Euterpe, Thalia, Terpsichore), and the ‘pensive Muse’,
cloaked in her mantle and with her face resting on her hand, meditating on the historical or heavenly arts (Poly-
hymnia, Urania). The Muses of the poetic genres that Aristotle would have inscribed in the category of the ‘seri-
ous’ kind (τὸ σπουδαῖον), juxtaposing them to those devoted to the facetious genre (τὸ φαῦλον), share a common
posture: the body tilted forward, and usually leaning on a support, they lean the face on their hand (fig. 20).32
The first figure of thoughtfulness – a prelude to melancholic introversion – is, therefore, the representation
of the ‘po(i)etic thought’ of the Muses, characterized from the beginning by a strong allegorical character. From
this archetype comes the typology of the thoughtful (and inspired) intellectual: St Jerome, intent on translating
the Holy Scriptures, lends his image to the figure of the humanist in his study, engaged in his fertile otium. Poets,
wise men, but also Fathers of the Church are portrayed in this pose: the posture of the pensive intellectual be-
comes characteristic of St Paul and St Augustine. The intellectual portrayed while intent on drawing fruits from
his – not infrequently painful – geniality is depicted alone, isolated from the world in the niche of his study: intro-
verted, concentrated, in a contained and intimate posture.
It is noteworthy that in the same years of the Warburgkreis’ studies on Dürer’s engraving, Ludwig Binswanger,
the psychiatrist who cured Warburg in Kreuzlingen, recognized the different, and often co-present, impulses to
mania/melancholy.33 The work on melancholy by Panofsky and Saxl of 1923 was arguably strongly influenced by
both Aby Warburg’s personal interests in that topic and by his existential experience.
The expression of pathos at the superlative degree, which ends up expressing itself in apparently antitheti-
cal forms with the “energetic inversion” of an emotional drive in its opposite - ecstasy / pain, depression / creation
– is scattered in multifarious images throughout the Atlas, a device of study closely connected to the mind of its
creator, and is still awaiting further exploration.

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IKON, 12-2019

12 L. Signorelli, Grieving over the Dead Christ, fresco, 1500-1502,

Duomo di Orvieto, Cappella di San Brizio (MA Plate 42)

11 Mnemosine Atlas Plate 42, “Pathos of suffering in energetic

reversal (Pentheus, Maenad at the Cross), Bourgeois funeral
lamentation, heroicized; funeral lamentation in the Church,
Death of the Savior Deposition, Meditation on death”

14 V. Carpaccio, Meditation on Dead Christ, oil on canvas, c. 1505,

Berlin, Gemäldegalerie (MA Plate 42)

13 Raffaello, Deposition of Christ, ink drawing for the painting of

Borghese Gallery (Roma), c. 1507, London, British Museum
(MA Plate 42)

15 C. Tura, The Lamentation of Christ, lunetta of

Polittico Roverella from San Giorgio in Ferrara,
1474, Paris, Musée du Louvre (MA Plate 42)

10

18 M. Grünewald, Crucifixion for Isenheim
Altarpiece, oil on wood, 1512–1516,
Unterlinden Museum, Colmar
MA – Mnemosine Atlas
* All images are courtesy of La rivista di Engramma
Bergamo-Bordignon, Iconographies and Pathosformeln of Pain
17 B. di Giovanni, Crucifixion,
bronze bas-relief, 1485-1490,
Firenze, Museo Nazionale del
Bargello (MA Plate 42)
19 N. dell’Arca, Lamentation over Dead
Christ, c. 1480, baked clay, Bologna,
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vita
16 A. del Verrocchio, A Scene of
Grief for Francesca Tornabuoni’s
Death, marble bas-relief, c. 1477.,
Firenze, Museo Nazionale del
Bargello (MA Plate 42)
20 Polyhymnia, Roman statue from
Hellenistic original, marble, Musei
Capitolini, Centrale Montemartini,
Roma
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IKON, 12-2019

* First three paragraphs are by Giulia Bordignon and last four by Maria Bergamo. Since 2000, the seminary research
group on Mnemosyne Atlas (now at University Iuav in Venice) dedicated specific in-depth analyses and studies – from
which this paper also originated – to the figure and work of Aby Warburg, publishing on-line the results of its re-
searches: see Engramma (www.engramma.it) and the Mnemosyne Atlas website (www.engramma.it/atlas). Web refer-
ences in this paper are drawn from this site (all consulted in December 2018). For the most important topics in War-
burg’s work see further bibliography in the works cited in the notes, and in (www.engramma.it/atlas/bibliography).
1 A. WARBURG, “Der Eintritt der antikisierenden Idealstils in die Malerei der Frührenaissance, in Kunstchronic”, n. f. 25,
no. 33, 1914 (Italian translation “L’ingresso dello stile ideale anticheggiante nella pittura del primo Rinascimento”, E.
CANTIMORI (ed.), in: A. WARBURG, La rinascita del paganesimo antico, Firenze, 1996, pp. 283-307).
2 A. WARBURG, “Mnemosyne. Einleitung”, in: A. WARBURG, Gesammelte Schriften. Der Bilderatlas MNEMOSYNE, M. WARN-
KE (ed.), Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 2000 (Italian translation A. WARBURG, MNEMOSYNE. L’Atlante delle immagini, M. GHE-
RALDI (ed.), Torino, Aragno, 2002); see also “Introduzione al Bilderatlas. Una nuova traduzione”, in: Engramma, no. 138,
September/October 2016, M. GHELARDI (ed.), (English translation “Mnemosyne Atlas. Introduction”, in: Engramma,
no. 142, February 2017, M. RAMPLEY [ed.]). See also K.W. FORSTER-K. MAZZUCCO, Introduzione ad Aby Warburg e all’At-
lante della memoria, Milano, Mondadori, 2002.
3 On the origin of the idea of Pathosformel see C. WEDEPOHL, “Dalla Pathosformel all’Atlante del linguaggio dei gesti.
La morte di Orfeo di Dürer e il lavoro di Warburg sulla storia della cultura basata su una teoria dell’espressione” [2012],
in: Engramma, no. 119, September 2014; A. FRESSOLA, “La danza delle Pathosformeln. Formulazioni dell’espressione
corporea secondo la lezione di Mnemosyne”, in: Engramma, no. 157, July/August 2018 with bibliography.
4 See Path II (Plates 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). Archaeological models and imprints from Antiquity at www.engramma.it/atlas/path II.
5 These definitions are preserved at the Warburg Institute Archive, London (WIA III.104.1: Synopsis of Plates) as type-
script notes edited by Warburg’s collaborators, most likely Gertrud Bing. They have been published in A. WARBURG,
Gesammelte Schriften, op. cit., 2000.
6 On Plate 5 Types of ancient pre-coinages 2. From the Magna Mater to the Mater Dolorosa: female figures of Dionysiac pathos
see www.engramma.it/ atlas/plate 5. In fig. 1 you can read the folowing scheme blue pathway: Niobe and the Niobids;
orange pathway: Medea; red pathway: Dionysian sparagmos (Orpheus, Pentheus); purple pathway: funerary reliefs (rape
of Proserpina; death of Meleager; death of Alcestis. For a thorough survey on Plate 5 see G. BORDIGNON, “L’unità orga-
nica della sophrosyne e dell’estasi. Una proposta di lettura della tavola 5 del Bilderatlas Mnemosyne”, in: Engramma, no.
100, September/October 2012. On Plate 6 Types of ancient pre-coinages 3. The sacrificial raptus see www.engramma.it/
atlas/plate 6. In fig. 4a you can read the scheme blue pathway: Dionysian and Isiac rituals; orange pathway: Laocoon; red
pathway: Polixena and Cassandra sacrificed; purple pathway: conclamatio and ritual dancing.
7 A. WARBURG, Schlangenritual, conference held in Kreuzlingen in 1923 (English translation in A. WARBURG, Images
from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America, M.P. STEINBERG [ed.], Ithaca NY 1995, pp. 38-39).
8 On plate 41 Christ as Orpheus, the Witch as a Nymph: the re-appearance of the pathos of destruction see www.engram-
ma.it/atlas/plate 41. In fig. 4b you can read the scheme analysis: Blue pathway: re-emergence of the Dionysian pathos
of destruction; orange pathway: re-emergence of Medea; red pathway: re-emergence of Orpheus. For a thorough
survey of plate 41 see G. BORDIGNON, “Riemersione del pathos dell’annientamento. Una proposta di lettura di Mne-
mosyne Atlas, Tavola 41”, in: Engramma, no. 157, July/August 2018.
9 On Warburg’s notion of “energetic inversion” see G. BORDIGNON, “L’espressione antitetica in Aby Warburg. La polarità
semantica dei gesti dalle Pathosformeln all’arte del Rinascimento”, in: Engramma, no. 32, April 2004.
10 On Plate 41a Invention of the Laocoön see http://www.engramma.it/atlas/plate 41a. In fig. 4c you can read the scheme
blue pathway: Laocoön in Medieval manuscripts; green pathway: pathos of the Laocoön before the discovery of the
Vatican group; red pathway: vehiculation of the pathos of suffering by ‘handy’ artefacts; pink pathway: the Laocoön
as cultural icon (susceptible to variation); purple pathway: the Laoocoon “alla franzese” and “all’antica”.
11 P. ARETINO, Letters on art, E. CAMESASCA-F. PERTILE (eds.), Milano 1957, LVIII: “Ecco i due serpenti che, ne l’assalir tre
persone, riducono nel suo verisimile la paura, il dolore e la morte: il fanciullo annodato dal busto e da le code teme, il
vecchio morso dai denti duolsi, e il bambino punto dal veleno muore”.
12 On Laocoön’s fortune in both literature and iconography from antiquity to contemporary age see S. SETTIS, Laocoonte
fama e stile, Roma, Donzelli, 2006.

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 Bergamo-Bordignon, Iconographies and Pathosformeln of Pain

13 On Plate 42 Pathos of suffering in energetic reversal (Pentheus, Maenad at the Cross). Bourgeois funeral lamentation, he-
roicized; funeral lamentation in the Church. Death of the Savior (see Plate 4). Deposition. Meditation on death see www.
engramma.it/plate 42.
14 S. SETTIS, “Continuità, distanza, conoscenza. Tre usi dell’Antico”, in: Memorie dell’Antico nell’Arte italiana, III, Torino, Ei-
naudi 1986, pp. 373-486; M. CENTANNI (ed.), L’Originale assente. Introduzione allo studio della tradizione classica, Mila-
no, Mondadori, 2005, pp. 3-43.
15 BORDIGNON, op. cit., 2004.
16 C. DARWIN, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, London, 1872 (Italian translation L’espressione delle emozio-
ni nell’uomo e negli animali, P. EKMAN (ed.), Torino 1999).
17 WARBURG, Mnemosyne. Einleitung, op. cit., 2002.
18 Quoted in E.H. GOMBRICH, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography, London, 1970, p. 298.
19 See Path VI (Plates 40, 41, 41, 42). Dionysiac formulae of emotions: annihilation and fury, mourning and meditation (victim,
executioner, Mother, Maenad, Laocoön) at www.engramma.it/atlas/path VI.
20 M. BERGAMO, “Matrici classiche della Madonna in trono. Dalla tipologia all’archetipo e ritorno”, in: M. CENTANNI [ed.],
op. cit., 2005, pp. 227-248.
21 A. PEDERSOLI, “Riemersione, infezione/affezione, invasione/protagonismo, ritorno. Figure en grisaille nel Bilderatlas
Mnemosyne di Aby Warburg (tavole 37, 44, 45 e 49)”, in: Engramma, no. 100, September/October 2012.
22 M.L. CATONI-C. GINZBURG-L. GIULIANI-S. SETTIS, Tre figure. Achille, Meleagro, Cristo, Milano, 2013.
23 E. DE MARTINO, Morte e pianto rituale: dal lamento pagano al pianto di Maria, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 1958; E. PA-
NOFSKY, “’Imago Pietatis’. Ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des ‘Schmerzensmannes’ und der ‘Maria Mediatrix’”, in: Fest-
schrift für M.J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage, Leipzig 1927, pp. 261-308; H. BELTING, Giovanni Bellini. Pietà. Ikone und
Bilder Zählung im der venezianische Malerai, München, Fischer, 1985.
24 M. BERGAMO et al. - Seminario Mnemosyne (ed.), “Il teatro della morte. Saggio interpretativo di Tavola 42”, in: Engram-
ma, no. 2, October 2000.
25 A. Jolles to A. Warburg, ep. 23.11.1900, in A. JOLLES, “La ninfa, uno scambio di lettere”, in: aut aut, no. 322, 2004, pp.
46-52.
26 About “the Nymph” in Warburg see: Plate 46 Ninfa. “Eilbringitte” im Tornabuoni-Kreise. Domestizierung www.engramma.it/
atlas/plate 46; R. KIRCHMAYR, “L’enigma della Ninfa, da Warburg a Freud. Un’ipotesi in due sequenze”, in: Engramma, no.
100, September/October 2012 with bibliography; G. DIDI-HUBERMAN, Ninfa moderna. Essai sur le drapeau tombé, Paris
2004; S. CONTARINI-M. GHELARDI, “Die verkörperte Bewegung”: la ninfa, in: aut aut, 321-322, 2004, pp. 32-45; E.H. GOM-
BRICH, op. cit., 1970, pp. 105-127; E. WIND, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1958.
27 E. WIND-F. ANTAL, “The Mænad under the Cross”, in: Journal of the Warburg Institute, I, 1937; text and it. tr. by G. BORDI-
GNON, in: Engramma, no. 132, gennaio 2016. See also M. BERGAMO et al. - Seminario Mnemosyne (ed.), “L’Angelo e la
Cacciatrice di teste. Una lettura della tavola 47 dell’Atlante Mnemosyne”, in: Engramma, no. 116, May 2014.
28 WARBURG, Mnemosyne. Einleitung, op. cit., 2002, par. 38.
29 See Plate 58 Chosmology in Dürer in www.engramma.it/atlas/plate 58; C. WEDEPOHL, “Warburg, Saxl, Panofsky and
Dürer’s Melencolia I”, in: La “Melencolia” di Albrecht Dürer cinquecento anni dopo (1914-2014), Atti del Convegno intere -
nazionale, M. BERTOZZI-A. PINOTTI (eds.), XVII Settimana di Alti Studi Rinascimentali (Ferrara, 4-6 dicembre 2014), vol.
48-49, 2015, Pisa-Roma 2016, pp. 27-44.
30 E. PANOFSKY-F. SAXL, “Dürer ‘Melencolia I’. Eine quellen - und typengeschichtliche Untersuchung”, in: Studien der Bibd -
liothek Warburg, no. 2, Leipzig-Berlin, 1923; R. KLIBANSKY-E. PANOFSKY-F. SAXL, Saturn and Melancholy. Studies in the
History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art, New York, 1964; R. WITTKOVER, Born Under Saturn: The Character and
Conduct of Artists, New York, 1963.
31 On Plate 53 Muses. Heavenly and earthly Parnassus. (Raphael) Following Mantegna and Schifanoja. Ascension see: www.
engramma.it/atlas/plate 53. Cfr. also Seminario Mnemosyne ed.: “Tre forme di malinconia. Una ricognizione su figure
di malinconici a partire dall’Atlas Mnemosyne”, in: Engramma, no. 144, April 2017; “Figure della Malinconia attraverso
l’Atlante delle Memoria. Galleria ragionata delle immagini dal Bilderatlas”, in: Engramma, no. 140, December 2016;
“Dolore e melanconia. Saggio interpretativo della Tavola fantasma De melancholia ex Mnemosyne Atlas 53”, in: En-
gramma, no. 15, March/April 2002.

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32 G. BORDIGNON, “Le Muse, figlie di Mnemosyne”, in: M. CENTANNI (ed.), op. cit., 2005, pp. 197-227; M. CENTANNI-K.
MAZZUCCO, “Pathosformeln delle Muse: la musa composta, la musa festosa, la musa pensosa”, in: Engramma, no. 14,
February 2002; see also the exhibition catalogue Musa pensosa. L’immagine dell’intellettuale nell’antichità (Rome, 19th
february-20th august 2006), Milan 2006.
33 L. BISWANGER, Melancholie und Manie. Phänomenologische Studien, Neske, Pfullingen, 1960; see also Seminario Mne-
mosyne ed., “Figure della Malinconia”, op. cit., 2017, par. 3.

Giulia Bordignon - Maria Bergamo

Ikonografije i formule patosa u Aby Warburgovom Mnemosyne Atlasu

Analiza tabli 5, 6, 41, 41a, 53, 56 i 58

Uzimajući u obzir ljudsku potrebu za prikazivanjem patosa “od bespomoćne melankolije do ubitačnog kanibalizma”,
Aby Warburg je definirao hermeneutičko sredstvo, “formule patosa” kao “geste superlativa” koje se pojavljuju u artefaktima
putem figurativnih formula još od najstarijih vremena i putem otisaka (“engrama”) koje umjetnici mogu “ponovno aktivirati”
u različitim razdobljima. U posljednjem Warburgovom, nedovršenom djelu, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (1929) nalazimo sustav-
no razmatranje ovih ikonografskih formula. Atlas je, zapravo, zbirka izražaja ljudske dinamičnosti, unutar labirinta slika koji
se proteže od antike do suvremenog doba. Ovaj članak ima za cilj ponuditi čitanje različitih oblika ikonografije boli koji se
pojavljuju u Atlasu: od “drevno skovanih izraza” patnje na tablama 5 i 6, do “ponovnog pojavljivanja Dionizovog patosa raza-
ranja i žrtve” na tablama 41 i 41a, - osobito kroz lik Laokonta. Konačno, na tabli 42 pratimo “energičnu i semantičku inverziju
patosa patnje”: mahnit očaj Marije Magdalene kao “Menade pod Križem” i temu melankolične meditacije koja se iz “Kazališta
smrti” nastavlja prema liku intelektualnog genija, “Saturnovog sina”, na tablama 53, 56 i 58.

Prijevod s engleskoga: Sebastijan Jureša

Primljeno/Received: 4.2.2019.
Pregledni rad

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