Reliquary statue of Ste Foy according to Aby Warburg and Hans Belting


The reliquary statue of Ste Foy in Conques is believed to be the oldest surviving three-dimensional
sculpture in medieval Christian art.^^[1] The core of the saint's enthroned figure is made of wood
and completely covered with gold and precious stones of all kinds. However, the head of the statue,
which contains the piece of Ste Foys skull, is a fourth century imperial golden bust.^^[2] The
original half figure with a bust was probably created around the year 883, when Ste Foy was called
the patron of the abbey church in Conques. The enthroned full figure with a crown is dated around
the year 1000.

The reliquary statue mesmerizes the viewers for centuries. The statue is 90 cm high and entirely
embellished with precious materials. There are even earrings hanging from its ears. Even more than
gold and gems, the worshipper is struck by Foys life-like gaze. The huge eyes are inlaid with
Irises and they are original with the bust. The saint sits on a throne in a very strict and siff
pose and her look does not remind a young girl, which Ste Foy according to the legend definitely
was. Not only that the statue's gender is hard to recognize, its facial features are not girly at
all. The original bust depicted an adult man and was reused without being modified in any way. The
oval face with very thin lips, long and angular nose and big shining eyes – those are the features
of pagan idols, emperors and later modern dictators.^^[3] Maybe this is also one of the reasons why
the cult of Ste Foy was so immensely popular in the Middle Ages and why it attracts so much
attention from contemporary researchers.

The cult of Ste Foy was immensely popular in the eleventh century, even though the saint herself
was relatively unknown for a very long time. Ste Foy was an Early Christian martyr – daughter of a
patrician from Agen converted to Christianity as a young girl and martyred under Maximians
persecution between 286–288. The relics of the saint were stolen by the monk named Ariviscus from
the monastery in Agen and transferred to Conques in the mid-ninth century.^^[4] The presence of
relics in Conques attracted pilgrims and rich donors. Soon rumors about the miraculous power of the
saint started to spread in the region. Between the years 1013 and 1025, Bernard of Angers was
invited to Conques to report the miracles of Ste Foy. The result was an outstanding book in four
parts – Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis. The book represents Ste Foy as a mediator with the divine,
patron saint and protector, as well as a child-like character. The worshiper could thus develop
almost an intimate relationship with her. It serves not only as a text of personal devotion, but
mostly as a promotional text, which was supposed to spread the popularity of the saint’s cult.^^[5]
The book disseminated the stories of Foy's miracles in northern France. Soon, pilgrims made Conques
the goal of their journeys. In the eleventh century, Conques became the obligatory stop on the
pilgrimage to Compostela.^^[6]

The Liber Miraculorum is much more than just another book of miracles. It contains remarkable
information about the socio-political organization of eleventh century society in Conques. But more
importantly, the Liber gives the most precious record of the saint's role in the lives of
worshipers and the way Ste Foy and her reliquary were perceived by medieval people. The most
striking record is given by Bernard himself. The monk describes, how he was full of superstition
and mistrust when first seeing the statue like the one of Ste Foy:


For in fact there is an established usage, an ancient custom, in the whole country of Auvergne, the
Rouergue, and the Toulousian as well as in the surrounding areas, that people erect a statue for
their own saint, of gold or silver or some other metal, in which the head of the saint or a rather
important part of the body is reverently preserved. To learned people this may seem to be full of
superstition, if not unlawful, for it seems as if the rites of the goods of ancient cultures, or
rather the rites of demons, are being observed. And I was no less foolish, for I also thought this
practice seemed perverse and quite contrary to Christian law when for the first time I examined the
statue of Saint Gerald placed above the altar, gloriously fashioned out of the purest gold and the
most precious stones. It was an image made with such a precision to the face of the human form that
it seemed to see with its attentive, observant gaze the great many peasants seeing it and to gently
grant with its reflecting eyes the prayers of those praying before it. And soon, smiling at my
companion, Bernier – to my shame – I burst forth in Latin with this opinion: “Brother, what do you
think of this idol? Would Jupiter or Mars consider himself unworthy of such a statue?”^^[7]


Barnard later adds that afterwards he was very sorry for his doubts, saying that “the holy image is
consulted not as an idol that requires sacrifices, but because it commemorates the martyr”.^^[8]
However, it is not entirely true that the statue does not require sacrifices. The Liber miraculorum
is full of episodes, when Ste Foy enters peoples dreams and requires candles, gold or jewelry in
exchange for miracles. And people obey her instructions and place their most precious possessions
in front of her altar.^^[9] Moreover, the saint's behaviour resembles very much the behaviour of
ancient gods. Ste Foy is playful when performing miracles. Bernard even states that believers call
some of them joca, which means jokes.^^[10] She is sometimes spoiled and revengeful in her way. For
example, when a girl who was previously healed by the saint ignored the precession with a
reliquary. The girl was punished by Ste Foy, because she “had shown arrogant disdain for the saint”
and her illness immediately reoccurred.^^[11] When rewarding, Ste Foy enters people's dreams in the
form of a young girl in a beautiful golden dress. But when admonishing or reproaching, she appears
in the form of her reliquary statue – strict and powerful. Moreover, the statue was carried in the
procession in order to perform miracles, but also to represent its power. Bernard describes a few
occasions, during which the statue was paraded for solely secular purposes. Once the reliquary was
carried to the place of mob riot to repress the disorder.^^[12] Another time it was carried to the
land which had been donated to the monastery, but the family of the donor disputed the monk's
claim. By that act was the land proclaimed property of Ste Foy.^^[13] This interaction between the
saint and the folk resembles very much the ancient religious customs. Roman and Greek gods, as well
as Ste Foy constantly interfere in human lives and act not as much as a mediator, but rather as an
executor of God's power.


To sum it up, it is clear that the phenomenon of Ste Foy deserves complex examination. The golden
statue of a very specific human form which contains sacred relics and is venerated and adorned has
a prominent place in eleventh-century Christianity. Not only its materiality, but also the ritual
practice with the statue is very similar to that of ancient Romans and Greeks. My task in this
essay is not to resolve this problem, but rather to examine the phenomenon, using the work of those
more competent for this task. I would like to test the ideas of Aby Warburg (1866–1929) and Hans
Belting (1935), by applying them on the reliquary statue of Ste Foy. Thus, the following sections
of this essay will be designated for this task.

Aby Warburg

The work of Aby Warburg has experienced a big revival in recent years. While during his life the
scholar was rather in seclusion and almost forgotten after his death, the institute and library
bearing his name are now one of the key institutions of modern Art History. The reason for that is
certainly Warburg’s original methodology and progressive ideas, which have found their audience
only in the second half of the twentieth century.^^[14] According to Warburg, the works of art
should be regarded less within the philosophical categories of aesthetics than as a part of
psychology.^^[15] Applying this approach, History of Art would become a study of behaviour and
thinking of people in history.

Aby Warburg occupied himself primarily with the art of Italian Renaissance. Medieval art stood on
the margin of his research; actually, the entire Middle Ages are perceived by  Warburg as a
transitional period. The ancient forms that he was so interested in, were preserved during the
Middle Ages by means of astrology.^^[16] However, it is clear that medieval art was not set aside
in Warburgs research, even though according to Warburgs own words: “Every age has the renaissance
of antiquity that it deserves”.^^[17] This superstition is not surprising in the nineteenth century
scholarship. Medieval studies were mostly nationalistic in their motivation. The renaissance, on
the other hand, was full of romantic and idealistic ideas and “offered itself as a screen for the
projection of our wishes and fears”.^^[18] The question thus sounds: How can the phenomenon of Ste
Foy be explained, using Warburgs approach?

Survival of ancient forms

Aby Warburg was most interested in the transition of ancient forms from Antiquity up to nowadays.
In his essay on the astrological program of the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara Warburg formulated
what he called ‘historical psychology of human expression’ or ‘pathos formulas’.^^[19] The scholar
saw the traces of a ‘religious being’ inside humans especially in expressive movement and gestures
of depicted figures. He was able to identify an echo of extreme devotion in an artistic depiction
of actions like walking, running and dancing, that results from an impact of extreme emotions. Its
investigation was based on a polar theory of culture, that every cultural fact or artefact is
ultimately a psychological and embodied compromise between magical defence mechanisms and rational
control of affects.^^[20] Using Warburgs words:


It is in the area of mass orgiastic seizure that one should seek the mint that stamps the
expressive forms of extreme inner possession on the memory with such intensity—inasmuch as it can
be expressed through gesture—that these engrams of affective experience survive in the form of a
heritage preserved in the memory. They serve as models that shape the outline drawn by the artist’s
hand.^^[21]


According to Warburg, the pathos formulas were stored in a collective memory of humankind and
unconsciously penetrated into the art of all epochs. He called it Nachleben, which means afterlife
of forms. It was Warburgs life-long effort to trace them down. However, it was the last years of
his life, during which he fully devoted himself to this task. In his institute, Warburg pinned
around one thousand images to more than sixty panels in what seemed to be random order. What he
actually created was a map of the Renaissance roots in ancient Greece and Rome.^^[22] He called
this project Mnemosyne atlas, according to the Greek goddess of memory, mother of all nine muses.

The ‘pathos formulas’ are the facial and bodily expressions and gestures, which transfer extreme
emotions like those of religious devotion. Since Warburg occupied himself primarily with the art of
Renaissance, he traced those formulas in movement and flowy draperies. But the sitting enthroned
figure, with a strict facial expression and fixed gaze is certainly an expression of extreme
emotion as well. Since Antiquity this form is reserved for emperors; like for example the Colossus
of Constantine dated to the beginning of the fourth century. This monumental statue, today
preserved only in fragments, once represented a sitting enthroned emperor, executed in a rather
abstract style, with a very angular frontal face and excessive eyes.^^[23] This is a pose of power
and it naturally attracts attention. There is no coincidence that such a pose was reserved to
Christ and is nowadays used to depict God the Father. And not by chance, the same features can be
observed on the reliquary statue of Ste Foy. Moreover, not only is the statue of Ste Foy executed
in an ancient form, but also the head of the statue is a fourth century spolia. Then, if we are
speaking about the afterlife of ancient forms, in the case of Ste Foy it is literal.

The serpent ritual

Another Warburgs text, which I want to mention, was not originally intended for the wider public or
scholarly community. It is a lecture given at the sanitary at Kreuzlingen, where Warburg was
recovering from a mental breakdown. After two years of treatment his condition improved and the
given lecture served as a proof of his restored mind. During his talk about the primitive culture
of Pueblo tribes, Warburg demonstrated his art historical theories, which can be traced in all his
work, but were never before formulated so explicitly.^^[24]

In his research, he worked with evolutionary theory as most of his contemporaries, but also with
the latest anthropological studies and especially with the anthropology of religion.^^[25] This is
clearly manifested in the lecture when deciphering the symbol of a snake as a universal sign, used
throughout history and cultures. While comparing the meaning of a snake in ancient culture with its
meaning in the culture of Pueblo tribes, Warburg found many common features and even an identical
legend which accompanies the serpent ritual in both cases.^^[26] The veneration of a snake is
according to Warburg an anthropological need which can be traced across cultures. The religiosity
to Warburg was natural to every human being and served as a carrier of artistic forms. Warburg thus
suggests that primitive customs like the one of Pueblo tribes and the ancient pagan culture,
preserved in the entire European culture as we know it. However, the meaning of that ancient custom
does not remain constant – it transforms in time and space and serves as a kind of barometer.^^[27]
Snakes for Warburg represent the cause of all things, but while in christianity the cause is purely
symbolic, for primitive tribes it was literal. That is how Warburg characterizes the ‘bodily’ and
‘imaginary’ symbolism, and snake as a universal and timeless answer to the question of the origin
of death and pain in the world.^^[28]

Applying this approach to the statue of Ste Foy, it is clear that the religiosity as a carrier of
ancient artistic forms did not disappear in the Middle Ages, nor was it preserved only in medieval
astrology. Today we know that the Christianity in the Middle Ages used the same tools for
liturgical practice as ancient paganism.^^[29] The use of the reliquary statue of Ste Foy serves as
a proof of this claim. This practice, however, was not entirely identical to that of ancient
religion. Both cultures used the same tools and practiced very similar rituals, but both cultures
understood the meaning of their actions in a different way. Ancient Romans and Greeks venerated the
golden statue as a deity and thus practiced what Warburg would call ‘bodily symbolism’. Medieval
Christians, on the other hand, considered the golden statue only as a shrine, through which God
performed his miracles. Ste Foy served as a mediator – a channel which connects a man with
God.^^[30] Thus, what medieval christians did, was named by Warburg an ‘imaginary symbolism’.

However, if we compromise the writings of Bernard of Angers into our equation, the entire problem
seems to be much more complicated. Although medieval believers perceived the statue as a shrine
which hosted the relics of their intercessor whose power came directly from God, this does not
explain the immense power of the statue itself. In the Liber miraculorum, the saint appeared in the
form of the statue in dreams of those who refused to obey her instructions. The statue with its
radiant gaze was carried to the places where power needed to be manifested. Even though
theologically the statue was understood in the means of ‘imaginary symbolism’,  practically it was
more like ‘bodily symbolism’.

Warburgs lecture was not meant to be used as a scholastic theory. It was kind of ‘thinking out
loud’ and the ideas presented there were not yet ready to be tested in a scholarly way. Despite
that, it laid the foundations for Art History as we know it today, namely Hans Belting's writings
Likeness and Presence and Anthropology of Images, which brought the whole image study to a new
level.^^[31]

Hans Belting

Likeness and presence

Hans Belting's book called Likeness and presence is entirely devoted to the history of images. The
book serves as a guide to the image problem. The image, as Belting understands it, is that of a
person. Such an image was treated like a person, being worshiped, despised and carried in the
procession; in short, served in the symbolic exchange of power.^^[32] The book is thus directly
concerned with images such as that of Ste Foy. The author is convinced that the images reveal their
meaning best by their use, but his aim is not to explain the phenomenon of images yet.^^[33] This
will be the aim of another Belting’s book, with which I will be dealing in the following section of
the essay.

According to Belting there were only two types of images in the Middle Ages: The Holy Images as
described above, and narrative images, which served as a substitution for the text. Both types of
images stand in opposition to what we today call an Art. The Holy images, like Ste Foy were not
holy by their nature, but because they were consecrated. Thus, the priest is a much more important
authority than the author of the image, and the image then relinquished its power to the
consecrating institution – the Church. Theologically, it was not a problem to depict saints, since
they once had a visible body. The problem arose only when images depicted God, but even this
problem was resolved by the double nature of God, since the human nature of Jesus could be
depicted.^^[34]

Anthropology of images

At the end of the eighties of the twentieth century, Hans Belting was working on a book, which was
supposed to complete his long lasting interest in visual studies. The book represented the results
of an interdisciplinary research group including psychologists, philosophers and of course art
historians. However, it was mostly a result of Belting's life-long effort to understand the
perception of votive images across epochs in the widest anthropological perspective.^^[35] The book
is called Anthropology of Images and was published in 2001.

According to Belting, the art history at the beginning of the twentieth century only came about as
the analysis of art works. That is why Warburg sought to turn it into the history of the culture,
but his followers again narrowed his ideas to aesthetic questions.^^[36] In his introduction to the
book, Belting openly stated that he took up Warburgs anthropology of images and his
Kulturwissenschaft and appropriated it to our own time.^^[37]

At the very beginning Belting distinguishes between an image and picture as one of them is mental
and the second a physical representation. The pictures or ‘physical images’ have a technical or
man-made body that catches our eye, while the image rests in our mind. But according to Belting,
this dualism represents a false dichotomy, like the one between matter and mind.^^[38] In reality,
both pictures and images are crucially dependent on each other, as one can not exist without the
other. The interaction between our bodies and those physical images requires, according to Belting,
a third parameter – a medium. Thus, “the picture is an image with a medium”.^^[39] The medium helps
the viewer “to see that the image neither equates with living bodies nor with the lifeless
object”.^^[40] “The image always has a mental quality, the medium always a material one, even if
they both form a single entity in our perception”.^^[41] Moreover, also our body serves as a
medium. “When external pictures are re-embodied as our own images we substitute for their
fabricated medium our own body, which, when it serves in this capacity, turns into a living or
natural medium.”^^[42]

The phenomenon of Ste Foy would be called by Belting an Iconic presence. This terminology was
created by Belting to name the act, when the missing body of a dead or imaginary person is replaced
by an image. The lost body is replaced by a virtual body which can be also called medium. According
to that characterization, images make a physical absence visible by transforming it into an iconic
presence.^^[43]

Such characterization of images shades a new light on the statue of Ste Foy and resolves the
problem of double symbolism emerging with Warburgs theory. In Belting's view the statue of Ste Foy
represents a medium. The proper image of Ste Foy is mediated to the viewer via that medium and that
is why the statue is abundant in such secular power. The statue is worshiped as a living person,
because it brings an Iconic presence of the saint. Same as a picture of the deceased one has a
special value for the owner and the look on it can provoke an emotional response, because it
reflects the presence of the deceased person. The monks in Conques were very much aware of such a
medium's power. The practice to create a golden reliquary in human form was very common in the
eleventh-century Auvergne region.^^[44] Simultaneously, this practice indicates the continuity that
Warburg was talking about, since the making of images can be traced to the most primitive times in
our history. There is this anthropological need to create faces with eyes, to look in the eyes of
others.^^[45] Actually, in order to be cured by Ste Foy, one also needs to look into her eyes.
Belting wrote:


We feel that pictures of people are looking back to us. This exchange of the gaze, normally
experienced only by the beholder, becomes a reciprocal experience in the case of a living mask or
painted face. Here the image involves – visibly or invisibly – the eyes of the other person who
lives behind the image. This experience of the image, in which the beholder's awareness of an
answering gaze animates the image, has to be set against the experience of gazing at oneself in a
mirror, which involves a different attitude.^^[46]


Thus, the decision to use a golden statue with a radiant gaze was very effective. No wonder that
the popularity of the saint rose so rapidly. Moreover, the medieval believers did not distinguish
between the medium and the image. Bernard calls the statue an image, meaning a Holy Image. Thus,
according to Belting's characterization, it was treated as a living person and the worshiper
developed an intimate relationship with it.

Carolina van Eyck & Statue as a living being

“What makes artefacts, including art works, exercise such agency or excessiveness that viewers
believe they possess significant characteristics of life”?^^[47] This question was posed by
Carolina van Eyck in her book Art, Agency and Living Presence. The book is a result of a
collaborative project between art historians, classicists, historians, literary scholars,
archaeologists and anthropologists.^^[48] In her book Van Eyck called for a new understanding of
images that would deal with the image in the way human beings interact with it. In her book, Van
Eyck gives various accounts of viewers attributing the life to the statue or other work of art. The
aim of the book, however, is to contribute towards the understanding of this phenomenon.^^[49] In
the conclusion of the book the author herself admitted that the problem reached a deadlock. She
sees the solution in Warburg’s turn to anthropology, ignoring that fifteen years before Hans
Belting already solved this problem.^^[50] It must be said that Van Eyck devoted her book to early
modern sculpture, which was categorized by Belting as Art, not as Image. It might seem that the
conclusion deduced by Belting does not relate to her object of study. However, The Anthropology of
Images deals with depictions from every epoch, even with the contemporary digital media. Despite
that, Van Eyck raised some interesting points which I would like to mention in this section.

The inspiration for Van Eyck's book was the classical text, namely Quintilian’s Institutio
Oratoria, in which the author analyzes the effect of work of art or speech on the public. Both
speech and art are animated by the use of figures. In terms of narration, figure is a change in
meaning of language caused by the change in the body's aspect. Orator uses figures specifically to
arouse the emotions as the vultus orationis, that means ‘face of the speech’, is a more powerful
tool than gestures and expressions alone, since it gives a visible shape to the emotions of the
speaker. The same principle is expressed when Cicero calls striking arrangements of words quasi
lumina, which means almost eyes.^^[51] The power of speech is by the classics illustrated by having
a face and eyes.

By this comparison, Van Eyck suggests that in order to create an impression of life, the statue
needs to have a face and eyes. This alone is mostly enough to achieve the required effect. After
seeing the statue of Ste Foy ‘face to face’, I can confirm that its shining eyes truly create an
impression of living gaze. However, there are many other tools to support the illusion of life, for
example polychromy. In the case of a golden or marble statue, the most effective tool is certainly
light. Van Eyck describes how the statue of Paulina Borghese used to be observed by nocturnal
viewers using torch light, because “in the flickering light statues seem to move towards the viewer
from the dark, and the play of light on the marble suggests living skin”.^^[52] Ivan Foletti proved
that a similar effect can be achieved with the statue of Ste Foy when illuminated with the candle
light.^^[53] The statue is emerging from the dark, her golden surface reminds of living skin and
her eyes shine so excessively, that it creates an impression of a truly living gaze.

The illumination of the abbey church in Conques, where the statue had been stored behind the iron
grills, is unknown to us. One can only speculate how well the statue was lit. Considering that the
most common votive gift was a candle^^[54] and the place behind the iron grills is not illuminated
directly by a window, the candle light is a very probable option.

Conclusion

The reliquary statue of Ste Foy can not be understood differently than as Holy Image as defined by
Hans Belting. This type of image, according to Belting, should not be studied the same way as
renaissance and early modern statues, since they already belong to the different category of
objects, which is defined as Art. The Holy Image is by definition an object, which is treated as a
person. It is venerated and possesses ‘magical’ power unlike for example an early modern statue,
which is animated mainly by mimesis. The Holy Image does not have to by mimethic to be animated,
even though in the case of Ste Foy the mimesis also plays a significant role.

The act of veneration of Holy Images can also be understood as the continuation of ancient customs
as introduced by Aby Warburg in the Kreuzlingen lecture. It is considered as an anthropological
need which can be traced to the oldest man-made pictorial representations. While God created a man
out of clay and breathed life into it, a man created an image with the same goal - to animate it.
Hans Belting introduced a whole terminology and philosophical system, which helps to understand the
phenomenon to its core. What a medieval viewer was experiencing near the statue of Ste Foy was by
Belting named as ‘Iconic Presence’. The statue in its material form is only a medium, via which we
are able to experience the image. Simultaneously, our body is also a medium, which receives and
creates images. The experience of our body thus changes our perception of the image. The medieval
man, who was not surrounded by images as we are today and underwent a pilgrimage to see the statue,
must have had a different perception of it than today's tourists in Conques.

Aby Warburg started to look at the works of art as a creation of a human psyche. His turn to
psychology and anthropology resulted in Art History as we know it today. Without this fundamental
change of thinking, the phenomenon of Holy Images could never be explained by Hans Belting. The
images like those of Ste Foy, would still be considered only as a result of a decline, following
after the great period of Antiquity.


Bibliography:

Primary sources:


-          The Book of Sainte Foy. Translated with an introduction and notes by Pamela Sheingorn.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.


Secondary sources:

-          Ashley, Kathlen, Pamela Sheingorn. “An Unsentimental View of Ritual in the Middle Ages
Or, Sainte Foy was no Snow White.” Journal of Ritual Studies 6, no.1 (1992): 63–85.


-          Belting, Hans. An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body. Translated by Thomas
Dunlap. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001.


-          Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence. A history of the Image before the Era of Art.
Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Chicago and London: University Chicago Press, 1994.


-          Diers, Michael, Thomas Girst, Dorothea von Moltke. “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition
of Cultural History.” New German Critique 65, (Spring - Summer 1995): 59–73.


-          Foletti, Ivan. Jupiter, Kristus, Chalífa: Obrazy mocných a zobrazení středověku
(IV.–VIII. století) [Jupiter, Christ, Khalifa: Images of the powerful and depiction in Middle Ages
(IV.–VIII. centuries), in Czech]. Brno: Books & Pipes, 2019.


-          Foletti, Ivan, Ladislav Kesner. “Ikonická přítomnost, doba koronavirová a obrazy bez
duše.” Kontexty 2, (2021): 38–44.


-          Fricke, Beate. Fallen Idols - Risen Saints: Sainte Foy of Conques and the Revival of
Monumental Sculpture in Medieval Art. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015.


-          Rampley, Matthew. “Aby Warburg: Kulturwissenschaft, Judaism and the Politics of
Identity.” Oxford Art Journal 33, no. 3 (2010): 317–335.


-          Van Eck, Caroline. Art, Agency and Living Presence: From the Animated Image to the
Excessive Object. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2015.


-          Waitzman, Kurt, ed. Age of Spirituality. Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to
Seventh Century. New York: Princeton University Press, 1979.


-          Warburg, Aby. Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contribution to the Cultural History of the
European Renaissance. Introduction by Kurt W. Forster. Los Angeles:Getty Research Institute for the
History of Art and the Humanities, 1999.


-          Warburg, Aby. “The Absorption of the Expressive Values of the Past, translated by
Matthew Rampley.” Art in Translation 1, no.2 (2009): 273–283.


-          Warburg, Aby, Tereza Martinkovičová. “Hadí rituál: Warburgova kreuzlingenská přednáška,
ed. a preklad Tereza Martinkovičová.” [“Serpent ritual: Warburgs kreuzlingen lecture, ed. and
translated by Tereza Martinkovičová.”, in Czech] Umění : časopis Ústavu dějin umění Akademie věd
České republiky 57, no. 4 (2009): 385–398.


________________________________

^^[1] Beate Fricke, Fallen Idols - Risen Saints (Turnhout: Brepols 2015), 25.

^^[2] Fricke, Fallen Idols, 32.

^^[3] Ivan Foletti, Jupiter, Kristus, Chalífa (Brno: Books & Pipes 2019).

^^[4] The Book of Sainte Foy, trans. Pamela Sheingorn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press1995), 263–274.

^^[5] Kathlen Ashley, Pamela Sheingorn, “An Unsentimental View of Ritual in the Middle Ages Or,
Sainte Foy was no Snow White,” Journal of Ritual Studies 6, no.1 (1992): 66.

^^[6] The Book of Sainte Foy, 11–12.

^^[7] The Book of Sainte Foy, 77.

^^[8] The Book of Sainte Foy, 78.

^^[9] Ashley, Sheingorn “An Unsentimental View,” 73.

^^[10] Ashley, Sheingorn “An Unsentimental View,” 69.

^^[11] The Book of Sainte Foy, 80.

^^[12] The Book of Sainte Foy, 204.

^^[13] The Book of Sainte Foy, 120.

^^[14] Michael Diers, Thomas Girst, Dorothea von Moltke, “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition of
Cultural History,” New German Critique 65, (Spring - Summer 1995): 59.

^^[15] Warburg, Forster 1999, p. 6.

^^[16] Warburg, Martinkovičová 2009, p. 396.

^^[17] Aby Warburg, Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contribution to the Cultural History of the
European Renaissance, introd. Kurt W. Forster, (Los Angeles:Getty Research Institute for the
History of Art and the Humanities, 1999), 6.

^^[18] Warburg, Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, 3.

^^[19] Carolina Van Eyck, Art, Agency and Living Presence: From the Animated Image to the Excessive
Object (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2015), 179.

^^[20] Van Eyck, Art, Agency and Living Presence, 179.

^^[21] Aby Warburg, “The Absorption of the Expressive Values of the Past, translated by Matthew
Rampley.” Art in Translation 1, no.2 (2009): 278.

^^[22] Warburg,“The Absorption,”  281.

^^[23] Kurt Weitzman ed., Age of Spirituality. Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to
Seventh Century (New York: Princeton University Press, 1979), 8–35.

^^[24] Aby Warburg, Tereza Martinkovičová, “Hadí rituál: Warburgova kreuzlingenská přednáška, ed. a
preklad Tereza Martinkovičová,” Umění : časopis Ústavu dějin umění Akademie věd České republiky 57,
no. 4 (2009), 385.

^^[25] Warburg, Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, 7.

^^[26] Warburg, Martinkovičová, “Hadí rituál,” 393–394.

^^[27] Matthew Rampley, “Aby Warburg: Kulturwissenschaft, Judaism and the Politics of Identity,”
Oxford Art Journal 33, no. 3 (2010): 306.

^^[28] Warburg, Martinkovičová, “Hadí rituál,” 395–397.

^^[29] Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence. A history of the Image before the Era of Art, trans.
Edmund Jephcott (Chicago and London: University Chicago Press, 1994), 11.

^^[30] Belting, Likeness and Presence, 11.

^^[31] Hans Belting, An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body, trans. Thomas Dunlap
(Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001),  2.

^^[32] Belting, Likeness and Presence, xxi.

^^[33] Belting, Likeness and Presence, xxii.

^^[34] Belting, Likeness and Presence, 7.

^^[35] Ivan Foletti, Ladislav Kesner, “Ikonická přítomnost, doba koronavirová a obrazy bez duše,”
Kontexty 2, (2021): 39.

^^[36] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 12.

^^[37] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 12.

^^[38] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 15.

^^[39] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 5, 10, 15.

^^[40] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 11.

^^[41] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 20.

^^[42] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 16.

^^[43] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 10–11.

^^[44] The Book of Sainte Foy, 77.

^^[45] Van Eyck, Art, Agency and Living Presence.

^^[46] Belting, An Anthropology of Images, 24–25.

^^[47] Van Eyck, Art, Agency and Living Presence, 17.

^^[48] Van Eyck, Art, Agency and Living Presence, 9.

^^[49] Van Eyck, Art, Agency and Living Presence, 26.

^^[50] Although Van Eyck mentioned the contribution of Hans Belting into the problematic (namely
she mentioned the book Bild und Kult), the Anthropology of Images was never mentioned, nor were the
ideas presented in the book included in Van Eyck's text.

^^[51] Van Eyck, Art, Agency and Living Presence, 18.

^^[52] Van Eyck, Art, Agency and Living Presence, 197–198.

^^[53] Video from the experiment can be found online:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvUcROMWF5g&t=284s&ab_channel=CenterforEarlyMedievalStudies

^^[54] The Book of Sainte Foy, 47.