Drawing on an unpublished set of notes by Aby Warburg, Linda Báez Rubí explores Warburg’s concept of greifen (physical seizure) and begreifen (grasping intellectualy ) as a key to interpreting the migration of images (Bilderwanderung) between Mesoamerica and early modern Europe. The case study is the xicalcoliuhqui chimalli, a stepped-fret feather shield used by the Mexican people in the sixteenth century.
