Iconographic Database The Warburg Institute’s Photographic Collection contains over 350,000 photographs of sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, tapestries and other forms of imagery. These are classified according to a distinctive iconographical system and complement the material in the Library. Most of the works depicted are European, and range in date from Classical antiquity to circa 1800. There are also small, expanding sections on various forms of non-European art, including summary overviews of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Islamic, Indian, Far Eastern and non-Eurasian iconographies.

The Iconographic Database contains digitised images from the Institute’s Photographic Collection and Library and follows its subject classification. It documents the iconographical traditions of Western art and facilitates research into these traditions as well as the identification of the subject of individual images.

The holdings of the Photographic Collection are being digitised. The first section to be completed is our selection of photos from astronomical and astrological manuscripts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. We are currently entering the contents of the Gods & Myths section (some 40,000 photos of subjects from classical mythology), a project generously sponsored by the Dean’s Development Fund of the School of Advanced Studies. The images bordering this leaflet are screenshots of the c. 3300 images of the goddess Venus in the iconographic database.

Read more:warburg.sas.uk/library - warburg.sas.uk/photographic.collection

The Warburg InstituteLibrary & Iconographic

Database

Woburn Square, London WC1H 0ABTel: (020) 7862 8949 Fax: (020) 7862 8910

warburg@sas.ac.uk - warburg.sas.ac.ukwarburg.sas.ac.uk

The Warburg Institute The Warburg Institute is concerned mainly with early modern cultural history, art history and the history of ideas. It aims to promote and conduct research on the interaction of cultures, using verbal and visual materials. It specializes in the influence of ancient Mediterranean traditions on European culture from the Middle Ages to the modern period.  The Institute stems from the personal Library of the Hamburg scholar Aby Warburg (1866-1929), whose research centred on the intellectual and social context of Renaissance art. In 1921 this Library became a research institute in cultural history and both its historical scope and its activities as a centre for lectures and publications expanded. In 1933 it moved from Germany to London to escape the Nazi regime and in 1944 it was incorporated in the University of London. It is now a member Institute of the University’s School of Advanced Study.  The full-time members of the Institute’s academic staff are engaged in maintaining and developing its Archive, Library and Photographic Collection, in teaching, in the supervision of research and in the preparation of material for publication.

LibraryThe Warburg Institute Library holds a collection of international im-portance in the humanities. Its 350,000 volumes make it the largest col-lection in the world focused on Renaissance studies and the history of the classical tradition. It includes a large number of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century continental books and periodicals (especially German and Italian), unavailable elsewhere in the UK, as well as sev-eral thousand pre-1800 items, many of which are extant in only a small number of copies. At the time of writing over 8000 of these titles are available online in digital format.

Its usefulness is further enhanced by the libraries of the Institute of Classical Studies, the School of Oriental and African Studies, Senate House and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, which collaborate with the Warburg Institute to avoid duplication. The libraries of the Royal Numismatic Society and the British Numismatic Society are also housed, and accessible, in the Warburg Institute.

The detailed organisation of the Warburg Library makes inspired con-nections between different fields of endeavour and study. It leads readers to books which they might not otherwise find, while the unique arrange-ment of the sections aids intuitive connections.

The categories of Image, Word, Orientation and Action constitute the main divisions of the Library and encapsulate its aim: to study the te-nacity of symbols and images in European art and architecture (Image, 1st floor); the persistence of motifs and forms in Western languages and literatures (Word, 2nd floor); the gradual transition, in Western thought, from magical beliefs to religion, science and philosophy (Orientation, 3rd & 4th floor) and the survival and transformation of ancient patterns in social customs political institutions and political history (Action, 4th floor).

The Library also holds around 2,500 runs of periodicals. about half of them current. A complete microfiche edition of the 4,800 pre-1800 vol-umes in the Cicognara Collection of the Vatican Library, donated by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, is available in the Reading Room.

Registered readers have access to Wifi, onsite access to online resources including JStor, Artstor, the Library of Latin texts ....(remote access is available to University of London staff, students and fellows only).

The Library catalogue is accessible via the Senate House Libraries cata-logue and COPAC

The Warburg Institute The Warburg Institute is concerned mainly with early modern cultural history, art history and the history of ideas. It aims to promote and conduct research on the interaction of cultures, using verbal and visual materials. It specializes in the influence of ancient Mediterranean traditions on European culture from the Middle Ages to the modern period.  The Institute stems from the personal Library of the Hamburg scholar Aby Warburg (1866-1929), whose research centred on the intellectual and social context of Renaissance art. In 1921 this Library became a research institute in cultural history and both its historical scope and its activities as a centre for lectures and publications expanded. In 1933 it moved from Germany to London to escape the Nazi regime and in 1944 it was incorporated in the University of London. It is now a member Institute of the University’s School of Advanced Study.  The full-time members of the Institute’s academic staff are engaged in maintaining and developing its Archive, Library and Photographic Collection, in teaching, in the supervision of research and in the preparation of material for publication.

LibraryThe Warburg Institute Library holds a collection of international im-portance in the humanities. Its 350,000 volumes make it the largest col-lection in the world focused on Renaissance studies and the history of the classical tradition. It includes a large number of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century continental books and periodicals (especially German and Italian), unavailable elsewhere in the UK, as well as sev-eral thousand pre-1800 items, many of which are extant in only a small number of copies. At the time of writing over 8000 of these titles are available online in digital format.

Its usefulness is further enhanced by the libraries of the Institute of Classical Studies, the School of Oriental and African Studies, Senate House and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, which collaborate with the Warburg Institute to avoid duplication. The libraries of the Royal Numismatic Society and the British Numismatic Society are also housed, and accessible, in the Warburg Institute.

The detailed organisation of the Warburg Library makes inspired con-nections between different fields of endeavour and study. It leads readers to books which they might not otherwise find, while the unique arrange-ment of the sections aids intuitive connections.

The categories of Image, Word, Orientation and Action constitute the main divisions of the Library and encapsulate its aim: to study the te-nacity of symbols and images in European art and architecture (Image, 1st floor); the persistence of motifs and forms in Western languages and literatures (Word, 2nd floor); the gradual transition, in Western thought, from magical beliefs to religion, science and philosophy (Orientation, 3rd & 4th floor) and the survival and transformation of ancient patterns in social customs political institutions and political history (Action, 4th floor).

The Library also holds around 2,500 runs of periodicals. about half of them current. A complete microfiche edition of the 4,800 pre-1800 vol-umes in the Cicognara Collection of the Vatican Library, donated by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, is available in the Reading Room.

Registered readers have access to Wifi, onsite access to online resources including JStor, Artstor, the Library of Latin texts ....(remote access is available to University of London staff, students and fellows only).

The Library catalogue is accessible via the Senate House Libraries cata-logue and COPAC

Iconographic Database The Warburg Institute’s Photographic Collection contains over 350,000 photographs of sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, tapestries and other forms of imagery. These are classified according to a distinctive iconographical system and complement the material in the Library. Most of the works depicted are European, and range in date from Classical antiquity to circa 1800. There are also small, expanding sections on various forms of non-European art, including summary overviews of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Islamic, Indian, Far Eastern and non-Eurasian iconographies.

The Iconographic Database contains digitised images from the Institute’s Photographic Collection and Library and follows its subject classification. It documents the iconographical traditions of Western art and facilitates research into these traditions as well as the identification of the subject of individual images.

The holdings of the Photographic Collection are being digitised. The first section to be completed is our selection of photos from astronomical and astrological manuscripts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. We are currently entering the contents of the Gods & Myths section (some 40,000 photos of subjects from classical mythology), a project generously sponsored by the Dean’s Development Fund of the School of Advanced Studies. The images bordering this leaflet are screenshots of the c. 3300 images of the goddess Venus in the iconographic database.

Read more:warburg.sas.uk/library - warburg.sas.uk/photographic.collection

The Warburg InstituteLibrary & Iconographic

Database

Woburn Square, London WC1H 0ABTel: (020) 7862 8949 Fax: (020) 7862 8910

warburg@sas.ac.uk - warburg.sas.ac.ukwarburg.sas.ac.uk