Klibansky R., Panofsky E., Saxl F. Saturn and melancholy: studies in the history of natural philosophy, religion and art

Krauss reprint, Nendeln, 1979. — 530 p.From the remote times when events in the world of man were first held to be linked with the stars, Saturn was thought to retard any undertaking connected with him. No doubt the ancients would have found ample evidence of his sluggish influence in the fate of this book. In :1923. Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl published Diirers 'Melencolia. Eine quellen- und typengeschichiliche Untersuchung (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg. B. G. Teubner, Leipzig). When this study was out of print, it was decided to prepare a new, revised and enlarged edition in which the develop-ment of the doctrine of the temperaments would be described in detail and the history of "Saturn, Lord of Melancholy" traced to the threshold of modem times. 1n due course, the broadened scope of the work made it necessary to abandon the framework of the monograph on DUrer's engraving. The plan of a new book on Saturn and Melancholy emerged, to be undertaken by the three authors whose names now appear on the title-page.