Legal Emblems and the Art of Law: __Obiter Depicta__ as the Vision of Governance

The history of the legal emblem has not been written. A seemingly fortuitous invention of the humanist lawyer Andrea Alciato in 1531, the emblem book is an extraordinary pictorial turn in the early history of publishing and in the emergence of modern law. The preponderance of juridical and normative themes, of images of rule and infraction, of obedience and error in the emblem books is critical to their purpose and interest. It is no accident that the history of this highly successful scholarly genre is dominated in authorship and content by lawyers. This book is the history of the emblem tradition as a juridical genre, along with the concept of, and training in obiter depicta, in things seen along the way to judgment. It argues that these picture books of law depict norms and abuses in classically derived forms that become the visual standards of governance. Despite the plethora of vivid figures and virtual symbols that define and transmit law, contemporary lawyers are not trained in the critical apprehension of the visible. This book is the first to reconstruct the history of the emblem tradition so as to evidence the extent to which a gallery of images of law already exists and structures how the public realm is displayed, made present, and viewed. Cover......Page 1 Legal Emblems and the Art of ­Law......Page 3 Title......Page 5 Copyright......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 list of Figures......Page 8 Preface......Page 17 Acknowledgments......Page 29 1 Introduction......Page 31 2 Obiter depicta as an Element of Law......Page 53 3 Devising Law......Page 79 Image and Enigma......Page 85 Elements of a Prehistory......Page 89 Visiocracy......Page 94 Legal Emblems......Page 100 Conclusion......Page 111 4 The Sovereign Likes to Hide: Visualizing Hierarchy......Page 119 Part Objects......Page 129 Megalographs......Page 140 The Sovereign Likes to Hide......Page 152 5 The Foolosophy of Justice and the Enigma of Law......Page 155 Figures of Identity and Exclusion......Page 159 The Foolosophy of Justice......Page 170 Aneau’s Jurisprudentia......Page 180 Conclusion......Page 191 6 The Missing Hand of the Law......Page 197 Hieroglyphics......Page 199 Amputation and Ineloquence......Page 206 Chironomia......Page 211 Interpretation Ad Apparentiam......Page 218 Conclusion: The Justice of the Hand......Page 223 7 Visibilities......Page 237 Images and Impersonations......Page 246 The Division of Things......Page 255 Actions......Page 263 8 Conclusion: Virtual Laws......Page 277 Bibliography......Page 295 9781107035997ind_p273-284.pdf......Page 0 ­Index......Page 303 The emblem book was invented by the humanist lawyer Andrea Alciato in 1531. The preponderance of juridical and normative themes, of images of rule and infraction, of obedience and error in the emblem books is critical to their purpose and interest. This book outlines the history of the emblem tradition as a juridical genre, along with the concept of, and training in, obiter depicta, in things seen along the way to judgment. It argues that these books depict norms and abuses in classically derived forms that become the visual standards of governance. Despite the plethora of vivid figures and virtual symbols that define and transmit law, contemporary lawyers are not trained in the critical apprehension of the visible. This book is the first to reconstruct the history of the emblem tradition, evidencing the extent to which a gallery of images of law already exists and structuring how the public realm is displayed, made present and viewed. This book is the first to look closely and critically at the history of images of law. This long overdue work incisively reconstructs the history of the emblem tradition to evidence the extent to which a gallery of images of law already exists and structures how the public realm is displayed, made present and viewed.