Aby Warburg (1866 - 1929) was one of the most influential art historians and cultural theorists of the twentieth century. Reconstructing a celebrated lecture delivered in 1905, which Warburg illustrated with original works of art, this publication examines his pioneering research on the role of classical antiquity and Italian art in the work of Albrecht Dürer. Focusing on the artist's master drawing The Death of Orpheus, it sheds light both on Dürer's early influences as well as on Warburg's own remarkable intellectual methods.