Under the Auspices of Mnemosyne

This article reconsiders the relationship between experience, memory, and iconology in Reinhart Koselleck's thought from an unexpected perspective. It focuses on the lesser-known Reinhart Koselleck Figure Collection donated by the family to Bielefeld University in 2021, which contains about 150 highly diverse artifacts: tin soldiers, busts and monument miniatures, and especially figures of horses and horsemen. Reviewing the collection not in isolation but as part of Koselleck's working and inspirational material allows us to rethink his iconological project through the lens of figural assemblage perspective and, thus, in relation to Aby Warburg's Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, a connection that has hitherto been insufficiently explored. In this light, Koselleck's figure collection, entangled with other media such as print and images, is itself analyzed as evidence of Warburg's influence on his method of assembling historical material

Affordance · Iconology · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies