Warburg Institute - History

History

The Institute was founded by Aby Warburg (1866–1929), a student of Renaissance art and culture. The art historian Warburg became dissatisfied with an aestheticising approach to art history and was interested in a more philosophical and a truly interdisciplinary approach. While studying the culture of Renaissance Florence, he grew interested in the influence of antiquity on modern culture and the study of this second life of the Classical World became his life work. His enormous private library was built around this question. A member of the wealthy Warburg family, Aby was able to privately fund the development of the institute.

Warburg was joined by the Vienna art historian Fritz Saxl (1890–1948), who transformed Warburg's collection into a scholarly institution, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, later affiliated to the University of Hamburg. Neo-Kantian Philosopher and professor at the newly founded University Ernst Cassirer used it, and his students Erwin Panofsky and Edgar Wind worked there. In 1933, under the shadow of Nazism, the institute was relocated to London. In 1944 it became associated with the University of London, and in 1994 it became a founding institute of the University of London's School of Advanced Study.

The original Warburg Library building in Hamburg is now a research institute, Warburg-Haus Hamburg.