La grande dea di Efeso. Una diacronia filosofica

This essay, moving from the Warburg Institute iconological collection of Artemis of Ephesus images (paintings and sculptures from 2nd century B.C. to 19th century A.C.), analyses the hypothesis on the origin of the cult of this popular goddess by some of the greatest minds of our age: from Goethe to Nietzsche, Frazer, Freud, Reinach and Sartiaux. All of them thought that Artemis, worshipped in the ancient Lydian town, is related with the archaic Great Mother divinities. According to Nietzsche, the image of Artemis is in some way connected with Egyptian Isis and Baubo of Eleusinian Mysteries and with the concept of «veiled» nature. Freud thought that Artemis of Ephesus influenced the image of the Christian Mother of Jesus. According to him, the Underworld of the mythology is the allegorical transfiguration of the unconscious. Frazer believed that Artemis of Ephesus is the «reflected image» of Diana of Nemi, the central figure of his Golden Bough. Studying some little known aspects of the thinking by Nietzsche, Freud and Frazer, like their opinion on the cult of the Ephesian goddess, will help us to better understand the thinking of each of them and to obtain a more appropriate image of the concatenation of the History of Culture.