Aby Warburg's (1866-1929) dots and lines. Mapping the diffusion of astrological motifs in art history

The art theorist and intellectual historian Aby Warburg made it his life's goal to research the "Wanderstra beta en der Kultur," conceived as the pathways of the mind. As "image historian" he traced the metamorphoses of ideas as translated into art, literature, and music over time and space, to probe what it meant to orient oneself in space. The Mnemosyne Atlas, a compilation of photographs to chart the development of particular symbols and images, is one such well-known tool of orientation. Less widely known is his quest, presented here, to understand astrological motifs and their shifting place in an evolving intellectual world view.