Our current exhibit, "The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law", is now available online. Up to now, you've been able to view the Rare Book Collection's exhibits online via this blog. While the blog has been a great way to provide access to our exhibits, it has a problem as well: since the exhibits are posted to the blog in installments, the viewer sees them in reverse order.

The new stand-alone exhibit allows the viewer to see the exhibit in its original intended order. In addition, the "Contents" links on the left side of the screen enables the viewer to skip around the exhibit.

A big thank-you to Jason Eiseman, our Librarian for Emerging Technologies, who built the new stand-alone exhibit site.

In the next several weeks, we will add online versions of all the exhibits that have appeared on the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog. I will continue to post our future exhibits to the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog, but now the same exhibits will also be available on their own websites, where the viewer can see them as they were intended to be seen.

For those of you, my readers, who can visit our exhibits physically, there's nothing like the real thing. I'm a huge fan of digital access, but it remains virtually impossible to communicate the size, scale, and dimensionality of the objects on display. Please come visit!

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

• Judith Resnik & Dennis Curtis, Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011). "By mapping the remarkable run of the icon of Justice, a woman with scales and sword, and by tracing the development of public spaces dedicated to justice—courthouses—the authors explore the evolution of adjudication into its modern form as well as the intimate relationship between the courts and democracy." In addition, the Representing Justice page, in the Lillian Goldman Law Library's Document Collection Center,  brings together image collections, articles, and videos relating to the book.
  
  
• Fondo Antico - Immagini della Giustizia, a website prepared by the library of the Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, is a well organized and thorough examination of how the image of Justice is employed in early printed books. It includes a lengthy bibliography.
  
  
• The Digital Collections page of the Rechtshistorie website includes annotated lists of useful links under the headings "Databases for legal iconography" and "Thematic image collections".
  
  
• Rechtshistorie's editor, Otto Vervaart, also writes a companion blog, Rechtsgeschiedenis. He has written several thoughtful and informative posts on the topic of legal iconography, dealing with their importance for legal history and the challenges in locating online resources. See, for example, "The face of justice" (Dec. 19, 2010) and click the Legal iconography tag to see the others.
  
  
• Justitia: Iconography of Justice is a Flickr gallery that as of September 2011 contained 133 images of Justice taken from volumes in the Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library. See also the related gallery, Justitia - headpieces. Headpieces are ornaments used as decoration at the head of a chapter or division of a book.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Thanks to the following individuals and institutions for their assistance in preparing this exhibit:

Kathryn James
Curator for Early Modern Books and Manuscripts,
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University

Nicholas Salazar
Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Yale University

Shana Jackson
Lillian Goldman Law Library

Drew Adan
Lillian Goldman Law Library

Image:Frontispiece from Maximae juris celebriores, deductae ex jure canonico, civili, glossa (Tyrnaviae: Typis Academicis, S. Jesu, 1742). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

This glimpse at the imagery of Justice makes plain the richness of its history and signification. Didactic emblems addressed fears of corruption, of irrational authority, and an absence of even-handedness. Blindfolds, double-headed Justices, and handless judges captured some of these stresses.

Yet recall that Justice iconography was once far more varied. Within a century after Ripa, his seven Justices had been distilled into one stock figure identified by scales and sword. And Ripa's mention of a blindfold as a marker of the obligation that Justice not be "tempted away from using reason" came to be an expected accoutrement.

The images in this exhibit are a testament to the normative enterprise that built public courts of law and sought to elaborate the import and obligations of law. The movement away from public adjudication is a problem for democracies because adjudication has important contributions to make to democracy. Adjudication is itself a democratic process, which reconfigures power as it obliges disputants and judges to treat each other as equals. The scales, the attribute of Justice with the longest history (dating back to Babylonia and Egypt), evoke the evenhandedness to which judges aspire today.

Our excursion into Justice iconography aims to appreciate but not to romanticize the roots of the didactic practices surrounding adjudication. While old images remain legible, courts in today's democracies are new inventions -- benefits of political and social movements insistent on equality, dignity, and fairness for all. But these aspirations have yet to be realized, just as a visual vocabulary to match those ideas remains under-developed. Whether political will exists to support both the infrastructure of courts and access for all those now eligible to use courts is in question, and hence, the ability of courts to provide active sites of public exchange before independent judges cannot be taken for granted.

Image: Decorative headpiece from Johann Stephan Pütter, Patriotische Abbildung des heutigen Zustandes beyler höchsten Reichsgerichte (Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1756). Lillian Goldman Law Library (German Law Collection of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York).

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Dumont, Jean. Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens (8 vols.; Amsterdam: P. Brunel [etc.], 1726-31), vol 1. Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Jean Dumont's Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens (The Universal Diplomacy of the Laws of Men) is a compilation of European treaties beginning in the time of Charlemagne in the tenth century. The engraved frontispiece, entitled "Traitez de Paix" (Peace Treaties), is by Bernard Picart (1673-1733), who was considered a "magnificent engraver." In the background, the Virtues Justice and Peace (both clear-eyed half-naked women) embrace. They are seated on a pedestal and surrounded by other Virtues, all labeled and including Fortitude, Wisdom, Natural Law, and Truth.

The French text below the engraving explains that the two male figures at the center are kings "swearing an alliance" that is confirmed through a handshake above a chalice-shaped urn in which a fire burns. Each of the men bears a palm, symbolizing peace, and ministers and counselors surround each. At the bottom, War is enchaining Ambition, Discord, Fraud, and Impiety. At the top of the frame, the eye of Providence looks down from thundering clouds from which harpies emerge.

The picture of two persons clasping hands over a fire occurs often in diplomatic imagery of this era and signifies "bona fides" (good faith) or "pacta sunt servanda" (promises must be kept). The depiction's iconic weight resulted in variations being used in seventeenth-century wedding poems, with husband and wife clasping hands to symbolize their union.

A simplified version of the Picart image made its way into the logo of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, established in 1907 at the Hague. A facsimile of the logo used by the Court until 2007 shows the artistic borrowing.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

A clear-sighted Justice is at the center of the frontispiece to a 1788 German edition of Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishment, first published in 1764. Beccaria was an eighteenth-century Italian jurist, philosopher, and politician. His well-known treatise, condemning torture and the death penalty, remains a foundation for theories of punishment. Beccaria's premises of reason, utility, and deterrence resulted in his rejection of executions.

Depicted is a Justice turning her eyes away, with scales, entangled with tools used in farming and industry, dangling by her side. She refuses the offering of a severed head by an executioner. Her posture enacts the position adopted today by those seeking to abolish the death penalty. The illustration was based on a sketch drawn by Beccaria himself.

Beccaria, Cesare. Von Verbrechen und Strafen (Breslau: Johann Friedrich Korn, 1788). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

The engraved title page of Bernard van Zutphen's Practycke der nederlansche rechten van de daghelijcksche soo civile als criminele (Dutch Law and Practice in Civil and Criminal Matters) depicts a crowded and lively courtroom scene. At the center, the presiding jurist is seated behind a table and beneath a small statue of Justice, who holds scales and a sword; her thin blindfold is dimly visible. The densely populated courtroom, with seats filled by men, includes some spectators focusing on the court proceedings and others chatting -- with dogs at their feet.

With minor variations, this same image can be found in several other volumes of that era, all illustrating how seventeenth-century town halls served as public gathering places, and court proceedings were ordinary events.

Zutphen, Bernhard van. Practycke der nederlansche rechten van de daghelijcksche soo civile als criminele questien (Leeuwarden: G. Sijbes, 1655). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

By the sixteenth century, the blindfold had come to be seen as a potentially positive constraint on earthly Justice, seen to be at risk of corruption or of misplaced passion. But Justices without blindfolds remained commonplace, as seen in the 1669 edition of the Republic of Genoa's criminal statutes. The engraving is by Giuseppe Maria Testana (d. 1679), a printmaker and engraver whose works included allegorical images and portraits of popes, cardinals, and other public figures.

Genoa (Republic). Criminalium iurium serenissimae reipublicae Genuensis, libri duo (Genoa: Giovanni Battista Tiboldi, 1669). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

A rare and intriguing portrayal of a two-faced Justice, titled "A Portrait of Worldly Justice," comes from a popular sixteenth-century guide to civil procedure by the Flemish jurist Joost de Damhoudere. One face is sighted and the other has blindfolded eyes. The face of the sighted Justice looks toward her large sword, held upright in her right hand, while the face of the blindfolded Justice turns toward tipped scales in her left hand.

The sighted face has the well-to-do on its side, while the blindfolded face is turned toward the side with more needy-looking individuals, children included. Those on the sighted side of Justice personify largely negative qualities, such as the two labeled Argentum (Money) and Favor (Favor). Blindfolded Justice faces figures labeled Despectus (Contempt), Miseria (Misery), and Paupertas (Poverty). The legend below suggests the children (one of whom is disabled) are Innocentia (Innocence) and Veritas (Truth).

This imagery is accompanied by more than a dozen explanatory pages, beginning with a quote from Cicero: "Justice is the virtue, by which is granted to each what is his own." Through this mélange of images and text, Damhoudere detailed his views on both divine and human justice. He explained that many turn to Justice, who is "repeatedly blind and deaf" to just causes." Justice is "two-faced" -- acting in a manner that appears even-handed but dissembling. Where she is "bound by a blindfold," her eyes are shut to "clemency." But the text has some ambiguity, for Damhoudere also commented that a "two-faced" Justice signified that she must "attend to each of the parties equally."

Damhoudere, Joost de. Practique iudiciaire et causes civiles (Antwerp: Iean Bellere, 1572). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Damhoudere, Joost de. Practycke in civile sacken (Rotterdam: Pieter van Waesberghe, 1660). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Alciati, Andrea. Opera omnia (4 vols.; Basel: Thomas Guarinus, 1582), vol. 4. Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Where might Ripa have gotten the blindfold? One possible source is Andrea Alciati, a professor of law. His friend Erasmus called Alciati a "shining light of Learning, not only the Law." Alciati's 1531 treatise, Emblemata, an anthology of moralizing epigrams to which his publisher added illustrations, was reproduced in some 150 editions. One of the "emblems" (a term he coined) is titled "The good Prince in his Council." The central figure is wearing a bandage obscuring part or all of his eyes, and his colleagues lack hands. The accompanying epigram reads:

These men without hands who are seated are those by whom justice is administered. They should have well-balanced sense; nothing is received from them in response to a bribe. Their prince, deprived of his sight, cannot see anybody, and he judges by due sentence according to what is said in his ear.

Both Ripa and Alciati likely knew the "Egyptian" allegory "transmitted by Plutarch and Diodorus Sicilus in which the chief justice was shown eyeless in order to illustrate his impartiality, while his colleagues had no hands with which to take bribes."

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Two codifiers of Renaissance iconography, Cesare Ripa and Andrea Alciati, generated compendia of icons and emblems, replayed by didactic invocations in art and literature, in politics and theology, and in popular pastimes from tarot cards to the satirical press. Through these multiple forms, a host of Virtues and Vices became part of the common visual vocabulary in Europe.

Cesare Ripa's Iconologia marks the beginning of a shift in the meaning attributed to the blindfold. First published, without any pictures, in Rome in 1593, it was printed with images in 1603 and regularly thereafter, appearing in more than forty editions in eight languages.

Ripa detailed various kinds of Justice, each with her own set of attributes. One was Divine Justice ("Giustitia Divina") and the other six were variations on "Worldly" Justice. All were clear-sighted but one, and sight itself was specifically admired in the descriptions of various Justices. For example, Ripa's "Justice According to Aulus Gellius" -- from the Padua Ripa of 1625 -- is said to have "piercing eyes" and to wear a necklace where "an eye is portrayed" because "Plato said that Justice sees all and that, from ancient times, priests were called seers of all things." "Divine Justice" (from the 1698 Amsterdam edition), was similarly clear-sighted, with scale, sword, and a dove in a halo above her head to invoke the Holy Spirit.

The sole version Ripa described as blindfolded was called Justice (or sometimes Earthly Justice). As a 1611 edition explained:

This is the type of Justice that is exercised in the Tribunal of judges and secular executors. She is wearing white because judges should be without the stain of personal interest or of any other passion that might pervert Justice, and this is also why her eyes are bandaged -- and thus she cannot see anything that might cause her to judge in a manner that is against reason.

Ripa, Cesare. Iconologie (Paris: Mathieu Guillemot, 1644). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Ripa, Cesare. Iconologie (Amsterdam: Adrian Braakman, 1698). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Ripa, Cesare. Della novissima iconologia (Padua: Tozzi, 1625). Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

"The Fool Blindfolding Justice" was not the only image of that era deploying a blindfold as a warning against judicial error, as can be seen from the 1508 and 1580 editions of an illustrated volume, Die Bambergische Halsgerichtsordnung. The volume, setting forth the criminal law and municipal ordinances of the city of Bamberg, included some twenty woodcuts.

In the woodcut called "The Tribunal of Fools," a presiding judge (marked by his rod of office, the collar of his robe, and his place of honor on the throne) sits with his four colleagues. All are blindfolded and wear jesters' caps. The legend on the scroll above their heads reads: "Out of bad habit these blind fools spend their lives passing judgments contrary to what is right." Once again blindness is equated with error. Blindfolds could also be found on other readily recognized Renaissance icons -- Synagoga, representing the Old Testament, was bent and blindfolded (blind to the "light" of Christianity), while Ecclesia, standing ramrod straight and clear-eyed, embodied the New Testament. Similarly, Fortuna, and Eros were also shown blindfolded, exemplifying that the loss of sight leads one astray.

Bambergische Halssgerichts Ordenung (Metz: Johann Schöffer, 1508). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Bambergische peinliche Halszgerichtszordnung (Bamberg: Johann Wagner, 1580). Lillian Goldman Law Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

The first image, known as "The Fool Blindfolding Justice" from Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, comes from the 1497 Basel edition and is sometimes attributed to Albrecht Dürer. The 1509 London edition offers a close copy. The woodcut was one of a hundred illustrations for this popular book, subsequently printed in many languages.

The scene is one of the earliest known to show a Justice with covered eyes. The deployment is derisive, evident not only from the fool but from the chapter that the illustration accompanied, which was entitled "Quarreling and Going to Court." Brant, a noted lawyer and law professor, prefaced the book with a warning against "folly, blindness, error, and stupidity of all stations and kinds of men." The 1572 version is all the more insistently negative; in this rendition, the fool has pushed Justice off her throne as he covers her eyes.

Brant, Sebastian. Stultifera navis (Basel: Johann Bergmann, de Olpe, 1497). Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Brant, Sebastian. This present boke named the shyp of folys of the worlde (London: Richard Pynson, 1509). Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Brant, Sebastian. Stultifera navis mortalium (Basel: Sebastian Henricpetri, 1572). Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

The image of Justice, a remnant of the Renaissance, has had a remarkable run as a political icon. We can all "read" Justice because we have been taught to do so by political leaders of every stripe. Courthouse designers, artists, and cartoonists remain confident that a woman with scales and sword will be recognized as Justice, and not as a misplaced Roman deity or a warrior princess.

This exhibit, drawn from the Yale Law Library's Rare Book Collection, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms (Yale University Press, 2011) by Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis, traces the roots of Justice iconography in books published in Europe between 1497 and 1788. Through these prints, we account for Justice's visual accessibility, making her image a part of today's popular knowledge when other European images of Virtues (and Vices), that were once as familiar as Justice, are lost to contemporary view.

The Justices depicted in Renaissance Europe had a diverse set of attributes -- cornucopias, fasces (or lictor rods), orbs and globes, books and tablets, and an odd lot of animals and birds, including dogs, snakes, ostriches, and cranes. Over time, as this exhibit documents, the depiction of Justice stabilized around a woman with scales and sword.

As this exhibit also details, pictorial representations aimed to denote something of the complex relationship between judgment, sight, knowledge, and wisdom. In the 1400s and 1500s, a blindfold on Justice signified her disability; today the blindfold is commonly valorized as both a sign of law's particular obligation to reason within confined parameters and of justice's impartiality and disinterest.

Image: Cesare Ripa, Iconologie (Paris: Mathieu Guillemot, 1644), Lillian Goldman Law Library.

"The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law" is curated by Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, Allison Tait, and Mike Widener, and is on display Sept. 19-Dec. 16, 2011, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

How is it that the figure of a woman, draped, holding scales and sword, has been so widely recognized as a symbol of the law for more than 500 years?

This question is at the heart of the latest exhibit from the Yale Law Library's Rare Book Collection: "The Remarkable Run of a Political Icon: Justice as a Sign of the Law." Using images from books printed between 1497 and 1788, the exhibit traces the roots of the iconography of Justice, a remnant of the Renaissance, that remains legible today. The exhibit features eleven volumes from the Law Library's Rare Book Collection, along with four emblem books on loan from Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

The shifting attributes of Justice, displayed in the exhibit, reflect the complex relationships between judgment, sight, knowledge, and wisdom. In the 1400s and 1500s, a blindfold on Justice signified her disability; today the blindfold is commonly understood as a sign of justice's impartiality.

The exhibit is curated by Judith Resnik (Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School), Dennis Curtis (Clinical Professor of Law Emeritus, Yale Law School), Allison Tait (Gender Equity & Policy Postdoctoral Associate, Yale Women Faculty Forum), and Mike Widener (Rare Book Librarian). The exhibit draws heavily on Resnik's & Curtis' new book, Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms (Yale University Press, 2011).

The exhibit is on display through December 16, 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, located on Level L2 of the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street. The exhibit is open to the public, 9am-10pm daily. The exhibit will also go online here in the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian