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The focus of this contribution is on the long inscription in Greek placed on the upper margin of Botticelli’s Mystic Nativity, and in particular on the lacuna that compromises the readability of the last passage of text, for which a proposal for integration is made. According to the proposed reconstruction, the Devil, represented by the host of ridiculous little demons in almost cartoonish postures, “is sinking himself in the earth” – ΤΑΦΡΕΥΟΜΕΝΟΝ according to our integration – overwhelmed and annihilated by divine glory in its highest triumph, the Nativity of Jesus Christ.

The article highlights the possible relationship between the iconography of the ‘characters’ used by Botticelli in his Calumny – where he transposes Luciano’s ekphrasis – and the personae from Machiavelli’s Capitolo dell'Ingratitudine [Chapter of Ingratitude], where allegorical figures related to Envy and Suspicion seem to be very close to those in the painting. Both works were realised in the first decade of the sixteenth century in Florence, whose political and intellectual tensions could have had a strong influence on both written and painted works of art.

In this issue of Engramma: Giulia Zanon’s Zooming Mnemosyne deals with the use of details in Warburg’s Bilderatlas, Monica Centanni’s Collateral effects of the “visibile parlare” (Dante, Pg. X, v. 95) reconstructs the hypothesis of a visual model for the legend of Trajan’s Justice, according to Warburg intuition about it; this contribution is connected of the paper by Filippo Perfetti’s Dante, Botticelli, and Trajan. An Open Note where the author investigates how Botticelli could have come to know that the bas-relief of the Arch of Constantine liberatori urbis was related to an episode in Trajan's life”. The focus of this issue is then extended to Warburg's cultural environment. Matilde Sergio’s Aby Warburg, Walter Benjaming, and the Memory of Images investigates the influence of Warburg's Luther essay on Benjamin's thought is investigated, while Dorothee Gelhard’s Gertrud Bing’s Scientific Beginnings reconstructs the intellectual history of Bing's doctoral thesis and its influences on Warburgian work. The theme of Warburg’s Denkraum is the focal point of Salvatore Settis’ Anselm Kiefer's Logic of Inversion: a fundamental overview of Kiefer's Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) on display at Sala dello Scrutinio in Palazzo Ducale, Venezia from March to October 2022. The third section of the issue is dedicated to new publications and exhibitions. Echoing Settis’ reflection on Denkraum, we present Clio Nicastro’s La Dialettica del Denkraum in Aby Warburg, published this year for Palermo University Press; an introduction to Cultural Memories: a series published by Peter Lang and edited by Katia Pizzi. Giacomo Calandra di Roccolino with Mary Hertz Warburg: Free and Unconventional reviews the exhibition of the artist Mary Hertz Warburg. The issue concludes with the important Choral Reading of Il metodo di Aby Warburg by Kurt W. Forster. L’antico dei gesti. Il futuro della memoria, where Barbara Baert, Victoria Cirlot, Georges Didi-Huberman, Micheal Diers, Andrea Pinotti and Ianick Takaes offer us their personal reading of Warburg’s life and thought as are presented by Forster, newly translated book, edited by Ronzani editore.

James Hillman’s reflections on war in his book A Terrible Love of War (2004), but also in his writings on god Ares (Mythical Figures 2007), are as relevant as ever. The philosopher shows us how "poetic polytheism" can also be extended to the tonality of theoretical thinking, and therefore involve not only the aesthetic experience, but also the ethical inclination. This is reiterated, perhaps more eloquently than in other writings, the important contribution that Hillman's thought can offer to the consciousness of our time.

The issue of Engramma “Tracce Finestre Visioni” (Traces Windows Visions) collects a series of contributions focused on the relationship between text and image, with particular insistence on the boundary between them as labile, porous and fragile: with holes and gaps that take the form of windows; latencies and wounds that appear like visions; persistences that are perceivable as traces. The first section includes a group of essays on contemporary arts: Marina Apollonio, Fusionecircolare/ Endings. Tra arte cinetica e testo usicale elettroacustico, by Guglielmo Bottin; Embodiment vs Rejectingness. Per una evoluzione del “sistema di filtri” nell’opera di Pierre Bonnard (1925-1935), by Mario De Angelis; Esposizioni di niente/Testi per niente, by Massimo Maiorino; L’indicibile rappresentabile. Su Wittgenstein e Klee, by Enrico Palma; Indovinelli compositivi. Esercizi di John Hejduk per gli architetti del nuovo millennio, by Susanna Pisciella; Finestre letterarie e finestre visive. Sguardi esteriori e interiori fra tecnica e metafora, by Silvia Urbini; Pages d’un Journal de Chantier. Riflessi di Jean Cocteau in Berthold Lubetkin, by Chiara Velicogna; Steve McQueen. How Does One Believe in the Future? by Angela Vettese. The second section “Note e Recensioni” (Notes and Reviews) readings and reviews of exhibitions in display in Venice, more or less directly related to the Biennale 2022, are presented: Venezia “maternamente oscura”. Anish Kapoor alle Gallerie dell’Accademia e a Palazzo Manfrin (aprile/ottobre 2022), by Michela Maguolo; An Archaeology of Silence. Recensione della mostra di Kehinde Wiley (Venezia 2022), by Asia Benedetti; L’incantesimo del fuoco. Sulla mostra “On Fire” alla Fondazione Cini (Venezia 2022), by Andrea Cortellessa; “Cromocracy”. Sulla mostra di Abel Herrero alla Galleria Castello (Venezia 2022), by Andrea Cortellessa. The section also includes a Note on the comparison between 1968 and 2022 wartime covers of the periodical “Time”: What a Time! Il ritorno del passato tra shock e continuità in due copertine del “Time”, by Francesco Giosuè. Closing the section, as well as the issue itself, are the presentations of three recent volumes that intersect the theme of the text/image/vision relationship: La memoria di un gesto. Presentazione di La memoria in tasca di Emanuele Pellegrini, by Silvia De Min; Sogno e visione, secondo David Lynch. Presentazione di: Nicola Settis, Chi è il sognatore? Guida alla visione di Twin Peaks 3, edited by Ilaria Grippa and Monica Centanni; abbecedari di Architettura di Sergio Polano. Presentazione di Beppe Cantele.

Since its first issues, Engramma has come to terms with images in war. In 2001, after the attack on the Twin Towers; in 2015, an issue dedicated to the abecedaries of Aby Warburg, Bertolt Brecht, and Ernst Jünger; at the end of 2015, an issue on the martyrdom of Palmyra, dedicated to the archaeologist Khaled Al Asaad. But already since 2008 Engramma has hosted various contributions and devoted several monographic issues to the protection of cultural heritage, wartime destruction and post-war reconstruction. March 2022 – and it is war time again. The first section of this special issue is dedicated to James Hillman and his reflections on Ares and the "terrible love of war". The third section collects interviews and interventions by Italian intellectuals who speak with voices that are dissonant with the stadium choirs that pollute the senses and dull critical intelligence: Nadia Fusini, Luciano Canfora, Lorenzo Braccesi, Moni Ovadia, Massimo Cacciari, and Salvatore Settis. At the heart of this issue of Engramma, you can find an Image Gallery, edited by Seminario Mnemosyne in six chapters: I. Enlisting Icons; II. Pornographic Romanticism; III. The Crusade of the Children; IV. "Still Dead"; V. In hoc signo; VI. Despite everything, Images.

This review presents the new book by Nicola Settis, Chi è il sognatore? Guida alla visione di Twin Peaks 3 [Who is the Dreamer? A Guide to Watching Twin Peaks 3]. The young author, a scholar of cinema and media studies, offers a brilliant reading of director David Lynch's latest season of Twin Peaks, an enigmatic television series watched all around the world. Through a narrative and visual approach adapted to the contemporary, Twin Peaks 3, The Return constitutes a new device, a still unexplored object that produces endless questions and that never stops involving the spectator in reflective and sensorial mechanisms. “Who is the Dreamer?” investigates the symbols and internal connections within this open work which expresses both the director's personal vision and sensibilities, and the human boundary between dream and reality.

The paper proposes and argues the hypothesis of a visual matrix for the Legend of Trajan’s Justice, recounted also by Dante in Purgatory, X. In particular, the author focuses on Warburg's insight—borrowed from excerpts of his papers, lectures and, in particular, the notes on Panel 7 and Panel 52 of his Bilderatlas—that the visual matrix of the Legend is a relief from the Arch of Constantine: not the figure of the kneeling Province and the merciful Emperor, but that of the Leader who “overwhelms by riding” his enemy. According to Warburg’s hypothesis, Trajan’s representation was reversed from a figure of violence to a figure of mercy: from the image of the Victor who overwhelms his enemies, to that of the just and merciful Emperor who gives justice to the widow for her murdered son. So, in the Mnemosyne Atlas the reinterpretation of Trajan’s relief from the Arch of Constantine is considered as a paradigmatic case of “energetic inversion”.