“Francesco Sassetti’s Last Injunctions to His Sons” by Aby Warburg: an attempt to reconstruct the image of a Renaissance man

Abstract

The relevance of this article lies not only in its integration of the iconological method into art historical discourse, but also in its focus on the work and personality of Aby Warburg (1866–1929), a German scholar known for his contributions to the field of iconology. Warburg is credited with expanding the boundaries of art history and shifting its focus towards the historical evolution of visual images. However, while his library and research projects have been extensively studied, his written works have been largely overlooked by Russian cultural studies and art historians. This article examines Warburg's approach and methods to studying Renaissance art and culture, using his work “Francesco Sassetti’s Last Injunctions to His Sons” (1907) as an example. It also considers the influence of his personality and psychological factors on his work. Warburg's distinctive approaches and methods can be traced back to two main sources: the Nietzschean concept of antiquity, which emphasizes its internal conflicts (specifically the Apollonian and Dionysian), and the psychological aspect of the genesis of Renaissance culture, as developed by Jacob Burckhardt.

The main focus of the article is on Warburg's concept of “pathos formula” (Pathosformel). This concept is key to understanding the contradictory human psychology of Renaissance culture in the 15th century, specifically in relation to Francesco Sassetti, Chief Financial and Trading Officer for Lorenzo de' Medici, the head of the Florentine Republic. Through an analysis of written sources related to Sassetti, Warburg deciphered the meanings of Christian and ancient images and emblems that were intertwined in the hierarchy of symbols associated with him. He concluded that these ancient (pagan) expressive images, known as “pathos formula,” were ambivalent in their content and served as a key to understanding the “energy balance” in the formation of a person's identity during a turning point in history. This new identity, recreated by Warburg, combines the Christian piety of a donor, the values of an enlightened humanist, and the individual entrepreneurial spirit of a banker who balances the risks of his activities with the pathos of ancient symbols.