{"id":20485,"date":"2021-06-21T14:02:16","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T12:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/aby-warburgs-kampf-mit-dem-bibliothekslindwurm\/"},"modified":"2023-06-16T12:47:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T10:47:08","slug":"aby-warburg-and-the-library-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/aby-warburg-and-the-library-dragon\/","title":{"rendered":"Aby Warburg and the library dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The letters also provide a foretaste of the potential incompatibilities between modern research and a traditional royal library.<\/p>

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21 June 2021<\/span><\/p>

On the morning of 16 December 1901, two men stand shivering in the unheated manuscript room of the Ducal Library in Wolfenb\u00fcttel. The older of the two, Otto von Heinemann (1824\u20131904), has held the office of senior librarian for 32 years. With a practised hand he lays valuable manuscripts on the long table, leafs through a few pages and then explains the origin, content and special features of each manuscript.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\n\t\t\tDas Handschriftenzimmer in der Bibliotheca Augusta, Fotografie, um 1900. HAB: Top 2a (90).<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\"Das\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/use>\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\tDas Handschriftenzimmer in der Bibliotheca Augusta, Fotografie, um 1900. HAB: Top 2a (90).<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The young man beside him, who is attentively following his every move, has entered his name in the users\u2019 book: \u2018A. Warburg, Dr phil. Florence, private scholar\u2019. Heinemann does not suspect what an effort his guest is making to look interested and maintain his composure.<\/p>

Later that evening in his room at the Deutsches Haus hotel in Braunschweig, Aby Warburg writes a letter to his wife Mary Hertz<\/a> (1866\u20131934) describing his impressions and sentiments in detail. Heinemann is \u2018proud of his treasure and is also at pains to impress a bibliophile stranger,\u2019 he writes. But, he continues, the librarian was \u2018absolutely livid at being disturbed in his normal routine and at the cold\u2019 he had to endure as he showed Warburg \u2018one manuscript after another for two minutes\u2019. Muttering some disgruntled comments, Heinemann seemed to Warburg \u2018like an aging sorcerer\u2019, who \u2018allows his young disciple to take a whiff of his box of herbs, prepared at any moment to let the lid fall shut on his nose\u2019.<\/p>

However, Warburg had not come to Braunschweig as a gawking tourist. Having met Heinemann in Lucerne the previous year, he had already sent him a postcard in March asking him for information about sources held by the library on two Florentine families, the Sassetti and the Tornabuoni.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\n\t\t\tAby Warburg an Otto von Heinemann, Postkarte aus Florenz vom 02. M\u00e4rz 1901. HAB: BA II, 98, Nr. 14766.<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\"Aby\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/use>\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\tAby Warburg an Otto von Heinemann, Postkarte aus Florenz vom 02. M\u00e4rz 1901. HAB: BA II, 98, Nr. 14766.<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Apparently Heinemann\u2019s answer had sounded promising. Yet now Warburg feared that he would not be shown anything at all that might be of use for his research: \u2018I must make sure he comes up with something more tomorrow, otherwise I\u2019m wasting my time here.\u2019<\/p>

Warburg certainly had reason to be worried, since Heinemann had a reputation for not being very obliging when it came to users\u2019 wishes. While on the tram between Braunschweig and Wolfenb\u00fcttel, Warburg had already been admonished by \u2018two natives\u2019 who were familiar with \u2018Heinemann as an unpleasant library dragon and proffered the young man some sage advice about how to bewitch HIM\u2019. Like Siegfried or Jason, Warburg saw himself compelled to vanquish the \u2018serpent\u2019 Heinemann in order to get at the coveted treasure.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\n\t\t\tJasons Kampf mit dem Drachen, Holzschnitt in: Historia di Giasone et Medea, Florenz 1557. HAB: M: Lk Sammelbd 64 (39). London, Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection.<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\"Jasons\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/use>\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\tJasons Kampf mit dem Drachen, Holzschnitt in: Historia di Giasone et Medea, Florenz 1557. HAB: M: Lk Sammelbd 64 (39). London, Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection.<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Nevertheless, after Heinemann had displayed the library\u2019s gems to him, Warburg did get to take a look, after all, at the magnificent manuscript of the Opera <\/em>of Bartholomaeus Fontius, one of the so-called Wolfenb\u00fcttel Corviniana<\/a>. However, Warburg didn\u2019t actually learn any more from the manuscript than he already knew from the printed version \u2013 and \u2018the portrait of Fontio didn\u2019t reveal much\u2019 either.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\n\t\t\tBartholomaeus Fontius: Opera, Florenz 1488, Bl. I r. HAB: Cod. Guelf. 43 Aug 2\u00b0.<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\"Bartholomaeus\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/use>\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\tBartholomaeus Fontius: Opera, Florenz 1488, Bl. I r. HAB: Cod. Guelf. 43 Aug 2\u00b0.<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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He must have been all the more delighted then, when, the very next day, he was shown an anthology of 91 rare Florentine prints, most of them 16th-century ecclesiastical dramas. Warburg probably became aware of this anthology via a publication<\/a> by Heinemann\u2019s secretary Gustav Milchsack (1850\u20131919), which supplies a list of the plays contained in it. \u00a0After his return to Hamburg, Warburg was to focus particularly on the Historia di Giasone et Medea <\/em>with its five woodcuts, printed in 1557.<\/p>

In order to be able to study the text and its illustrations in more detail, he later asked Heinemann at least once \u2013 naturally in vain \u2013 to send him the book via interlibrary loan. In September 1904, only three months after Heinemann\u2019s death, he sent a letter to his designated successor Milchsack asking him for photographs of the woodcuts, adding that he would \u2018prefer to have the anthology here in order to be able to study it again or to have it photographed here; but I don\u2019t dare to repeat this request, since I only recently received a negative response from the late senior librarian, even though I \u201cof course only\u201d wanted to use the anthology in the reading rooms of the local [Hamburg municipal] library.\u2019 Milchsack wrote back immediately and included an obituary of Heinemann<\/a> with his letter. Warburg no doubt found the not always flattering characterisation of the deceased that he was now able to read gratifying: \u2018Anyone who knocked on the doors of the library all too impetuously, entertaining the notion that the books and library officials had been eagerly waiting to be of assistance to the scholar in his naturally highly significant research instead found himself to his surprise confronted with a senior librarian with a cool official air and a tightly buttoned up jacket; it was therefore all too human and understandable when the scholar subsequently gave vent to his anger with chiding remarks at not having his wishes and ambitions fulfilled. (15f.)\u2019<\/p>

Although Milchsack proved to be considerably more liberal than Heinemann, he too was subject to certain constraints. He therefore had to tell Warburg that while an interlibrary loan of the desired book was possible in principle, in this case it would require the approval of the Ducal Ministry of State and a request to this effect would need to be submitted. Warburg replied that he would be satisfied with just the photos and would not be submitting such a request for the time being. The photos arrived in Hamburg on 22 October. But to examine them without the accompanying texts was not in keeping with Warburg\u2019s scholarly ethos. In February 1906 Warburg therefore requested a copy of Giasone et Medea<\/em>, which was sent<\/a> to him <\/u>two months later for a fee of 30 Reichsmarks.<\/p>

In the following 25 years Warburg was repeatedly to have reproductions made of images from manuscripts and prints from the Wolfenb\u00fcttel library. Many of these photographs, or at least records of them, still exist today. In his research Warburg always used the latest technology available for reproducing works of art \u2013 irrespective of whether he needed the images for his own publications. It cannot be entirely ruled out that the steadily growing picture archive at the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Hamburg (Hamburg Library of Cultural Studies) that was amassed from the flood of photo requests to museums, libraries and archives was also motivated by the experiences Warburg had had with difficult directors of collections. Apart from Heinemann, one might also mention Guido Biagi, the director of the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence. His increasingly intensive use of photography as an \u2018image vehicle\u2019 of the second order certainly allowed Warburg to cut down on library visits. He never came back to Wolfenb\u00fcttel.<\/p>

I would like to thank Bj\u00f6rn Biester, Christian Heitzmann and Eckart Marchand for invaluable information and assistance. The selected edition of Warburg\u2019s letters procured by Michael Diers will probably be published in 2021 as Volume 5 of the student edition.<\/p>

Illustration: <\/em>Aby Warburg, photograph, 1912 (source: <\/em>Wikipedia<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

PURL: http:\/\/diglib.hab.de\/?link=143<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The author<\/h2>\n\t\t\t

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Leiter des Forschungsschwerpunkts Historische Bildkulturen an der HAB Gesch\u00e4ftsf\u00fchrer der Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts (DGEJ) Stellvertretende Ombudsperson f\u00fcr die Sicherung der guten wissenschaftlichen Praxis   Forschungsschwerpunkte Wissens- und Kulturgeschichte der Fr\u00fchen Neuzeit Wissenschaftsgeschichte\/Gelehrtengeschichte Historische Bild- und Wahrnehmungskulturen Gelehrtenportr\u00e4ts Bildtaktiken Theatergeschichte der Fr\u00fchen Neuzeit   Curriculum Vitae seit 2017 stellvertretender Leiter der Abteilung […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":14422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,274],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-info","category-hablog-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20485"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22980,"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20485\/revisions\/22980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hab.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}