Imago Pietatis. Un contributo alla storia tipologica dell’Uomo dei dolori e della Maria Mediatrix (1927), con una nota critica di J. Cooke

This little known study is here presented in a revised translation, whose purpose is to emphasise the critical import of this rather complex article, where Panofsky analysed the birth and dissemination of the Man of Sorrows as a devotional image. The critical note considers Imago Pietatis against the broader framework of Panofsky’s Hamburg years – notably marked by his friendship and philosophical kinship with Ernst Cassirer and his association with Aby Warburg’s famous Bibliothek, focusing on its key methodological points and critical fortune. The concept of Typus, drawn from archaeological studies and applied to stylistic and iconological motifs, is thus studied, in light of its significance and the different meaning it would take on in Panofsky’s following iconological groundwork. The contemporary and later debate on Andachtsbilder and the philosophical implications of the concept of imago are also examined.