Freud, Warburg and the Gods in Exile

Abstract

Warburg comments, in his study of the frescoes in the Schifanoia Palace of Ferrara, that although his initial inclination was to deal with beautiful objects, the problems posed by the decipherment of the complex iconography of this Renaissance saloon led him to the dark regions of astral superstition. In the European tradition, he warns, the ancient gods were incorporated, without interruption, as demons to the Christian worldview. In these Schifanoia frescoes, then, the gods of Olympus, who, under the influence of the East, assumed the government of the planets, lend to culture their own names and power for astrological purposes. This idea of “gods in exile”, which is already found in Heinrich Heine, was also re-signified by Freud in his article The ominous (Das Unheimlich): the double has become a terrifying figure like these gods, who, after the ruin of their religion, became demons. What, then, is the relationship between the unconscious and these gods in exile?