The Warburg Institute occupies a unique place in European intellectual life. It is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the classical tradition, that is, to exploring the abiding influence of the ancient world on the art, thought, literature, religion and social customs of Europe and the Near East.
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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. Its first Director was Fritz Saxl followed by Henri Frankfort, Gertrud Bing, E. H. Gombrich, J. B. Trapp, Nicholas Mann, Charles Hope and Peter Mack.
The tradition drawn on by the Institute includes the work of such distinguished scholars as Warburg himself, Fritz Saxl, Ernst Cassirer, Raymond Klibansky, P. O. Kristeller, Arnaldo Momigliano, E. H. Gombrich, D. P. Walker, Frances A. Yates, Charles B. Schmitt and Michael Baxandall. It has been a tradition of new departures achieved primarily by working across the boundaries of established disciplines. The Institute continues to promote this approach through all its research activities, as well as through the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes and the various monograph series that it publishes.
An open-access research library which aims to bring as much and as diverse information as possible to bear on specific problems within the area broadly defined as the classical tradition. It contains about a third of a million volumes (some 40% of which are not in the British Library), arranged and indexed by subject so that they reflect the interdisciplinary principles that lie behind all the Institute’s activities. The collection also includes some 3,000 journal titles (830 of them not available elsewhere in London) and many thousands of offprints. Click here for the Library Page.
The Photographic Collection
A reference collection of about 450,000 photographs, classified according to a distinctive iconographical system and complementing the material in the Library. The collection includes the Census of Works of Antique Art and Architecture known to the Renaissance and the Menil Archive of the Image of the Black in Western Art. Click here for the Photographic Collection Page.
The Intellectual Community
The Institute is recognized by scholars all over the world as a centre for interdisciplinary research with its own individual ethos, characterized by scholarly generosity and by the involvement of every member of the small community in the intellectual life of the Institute. A Common Room, which caters for lunch and for tea and coffee in the afternoon, acts as a focus for friendly and informal discussion.
The combination of teaching, publishing, research seminars, lectures and colloquia, and the constant flow of distinguished scholars, visiting Fellows and other visitors, all contribute to the creation of a vital atmosphere of intellectual enquiry and endeavour. It is a context which presents students with exceptional opportunities to develop their own ideas as well as to learn from those of others. Because the Institute exists to foster scholarship, every member of the academic staff is actively engaged in research; in many cases, the subject-matter of the courses is closely related to the teacher's own research, and students benefit from the sense of immediacy and discovery that this brings. Furthermore, teaching is not limited to the formal hours of contact in classes or seminars: the discussion of course-material and research topics continues outside the classroom and does not involve only the teachers or supervisors and their students. The chance to meet visiting Research Fellows from abroad (of whom the Institute has about twenty each year) is particularly valuable.
The possibility of taking part in seminars and colloquia (often on an international level), which the Institute organizes or hosts on a regular basis, provides students with experience of the wider world of scholars and scholarship. Recent colloquia titles include The Muses and their Afterlife in Post-Classical Europe, The Iconography of Slavery in Europe 1500-1800, Medicine and Classicism in Comparative Perspective, Cosmography of Paradise: The Other World from Ancient Mesopotamia to Medieval Europe.
Academic Staff Involved in Research and Teaching
Professor Peter Mack
Director & Professor in the History of the Classical Tradition
•Renaissance literature, rhetoric and thought
Peter.Mack(at)sas.ac.uk
Professor Charles S. F. Burnett
Professor of the History of Islamic Influences in Europe
• Arabic and Islamic influences in Europe
charles.burnett(at)sas.ac.uk
Dr Rembrandt Duits
Deputy Curator (Photographic Collection)
• Renaissance art and material culture
Rembrandt.Duits(at)sas.ac.uk
Dr Chiara Franceschini
Academic Assistant (Photographic Collection)
Late medieval and early modern history; Renaissance art
Chiara.Franceschini(at)sas.ac.uk
Dr Guido Giglioni
Cassamarca Lecturer in Neo-Latin Cultural and Intellectual History 1400-1700
• Renaissance philosophy and medicine
Guido.Giglioni(at)sas.ac.uk
Professor Alastair Hamilton
Arcadian Visiting Research Professor
• Early modern intellectual and religious history
Alastair.Hamilton(at)sas.ac.uk
Professor Jill Kraye
Librarian & Professor in the History of Renaissance Philosophy
• Renaissance philosophy; humanism
Jill.Kraye(at)sas.ac.uk
Dr François Quiviger
Curator of Digital Resources, Assistant Librarian
• Italian art and literature 1550 -1600
Francois.Quiviger(at)sas.ac.uk
Dr Alessandro Scafi
Lecturer in Medieval and Renaissance Cultural History
• History of Religion, Literature and Political Thought, 1200-1600.
Alessandro.Scafi(at)sas.ac.uk
Dr Paul Taylor
Curator (Photographic Collection)
• History of art theory; 17th- and 18th- century Dutch art
Paul.Taylor(at)sas.ac.uk