Pagan mysteries in the Renaissance

Themes of pagan mysticism and Neoplatonic philosophy are often to be found in the great Renaissance paintings, and in the poetry and other art of the period as well. Professor Wind’s exploration of these themes was acclaimed, when it first appeared, for its impeccable scholarship and its subtle explanation of the imagery of masterpieces by Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and others. In preparing this new Peregrine edition, Edgar Wind, who is Professor of the History of Art at Oxford and was the Reith Lecturer in 1960, has not only extensively revised the text but has also added nine new appendices and twenty-five further plates to illustrate his argument. Professor Edgar Wind, first occupant of the Chair of the History of Art that was established in the University of Oxford in 1955, was born in Berlin in 1900. After receiving his doctorate in 1922 from the University of Hamburg with a dissertation on methods of art history, he began his academic career at the University of North Carolina in 1925, teaching philosophy. In 1933, a few years after his return to the University of Hamburg, he was instrumental in bringing the Warburg Library to London and became its Deputy-Director. He was appointed Professor of Art in the University of Chicago in 1942, and from 1948 to 1955 he was Professor of Philosophy and of Art in Smith College, Massachusetts. The present book was first written during the years in New England. Professor Wind has given the Ryerson Lectures at Yale University, and he has been both Chichele Lecturer at Oxford and Rede Lecturer at Cambridge. Among his philosophical writings are an early book on theoretical physics and Kant’s antinomies (Das Experiment und die Metaphysik, 1934) and a study on the moral philosophy underlying British portraiture in the eighteenth century (Humanitätsidee und heroisiertes Porträt, 1932). His many publications on art, iconographical studies in search of what has been called ‘le lyrisme exact”, include Bellini's Feast of the Gods (1948), Art and Anarchy (Reith Lectures published in 1963), Michelangelo's Prophets and Sibyls (1966).