Aby Warburg's fame was always above the real knowledge of his work. But, in the last two decades, some of the most important philosophers of the aesthetics - such as Georges Didi-Huberman and Giorgio Agamben - have found out in this German art historian an obscure predecessor of their own inquiries. After discussing Warburg's legacy in art historians such as Ernst Gombrich and Erwin Panofsky, this essay describes the trajectory of that retrieval as well as illuminates some warburgian concepts and methodological procedures that fascinate contemporary thinkers. Finally, it suggests that is due to Walter Benjamin's crescent influence and thanks to the questions raised by the contemporary images that Warburg's work is back, playing an important role among historians and visual scholars.
Art history; Image theory; Historical time; Iconology; Iconography