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 book to look closely and critically at the history of images of law.

It was the classical task of legal rhetoric to make law both seen and understood. These conjoint goals came to be separated and opposed in modernity and a degree of blindness ensued. Legal reason was increasingly deemed to be a purely textual enterprise. Against this constraint and in furtherance of an incipient visual turn in legal studies, Genealogies of Legal Vision seeks to revive the classical ars iuris and to this end traces the history of regimes of visual control. Law always relied in significant measure upon the use of visual representations, upon pictures, architecture, costume and statuary to convey authority and sovereign norm. Military, religious, administrative and legal insignia found juridical codification and expression in collections of signs of office, in heraldic codes, in genealogical devices, and then finally in the juridical invention in the mid-sixteenth century of the legal emblem book. Genealogies of Legal Vision traces the complex lineage of the legal emblem and argues that the mens emblematica of the humanist lawyers was the inauguration of a visiocratic regime that continues into the multiple new technologies and novel media of contemporary governance. Bringing together leading experts on the history and art of legal emblems this collection provides a ground-breaking account of the long relationship between visibility, meaning and normativity.

Following an interdisciplinary approach linking image and legal sciences, Law and Images attempts to outline a research field “Law and Images” in parallel to the well-established “Law and Literature”. It also systematizes images in law, of law and for law.

How does materiality matter to legal scholarship? What can affect studies offer to legal scholars? What are the connections among visual studies, art history, and the knowledge and experience of law? What can the disciplines of book history, digital humanities, performance studies, disability studies, and post-colonial studies contribute to contemporary and historical understandings of law? These are only some of the important questions addressed in this wide-ranging collection of law and humanities scholarship. Collecting 45 new essays by leading international scholars, The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities showcases the work of law and humanities across disciplines, addressing methods, concepts and themes, genres, and areas of the law. The essays explore under-researched domains such as comics, videos, police files, form contracts, and paratexts, and shed new light on traditional topics, such as free speech, intellectual property, international law, indigenous peoples, immigration, evidence, and human rights. The Handbook provides an exciting new agenda for scholarship in law and humanities, and will be essential reading for anyone interested in the intersections of law and humanistic inquiry.

A remnant of the Renaissance : the transnational iconography of justice -- Civic space, the public square, and good governance -- Obedience : the judge as the loyal servant of the state -- Of eyes and ostriches -- Why eyes? : color, blindness, and impartiality -- Representations and abstractions : identity, politics, and rights -- From seventeenth-century town halls to twentieth-century courts -- A building and litigation boom in Twentieth-Century federal courts -- Late Twentieth-Century United States courts : monumentality, security, and eclectic imagery -- Monuments to the present and museums of the past : national courts (and prisons) -- Constructing regional rights -- Multi-jurisdictional premises : from peace to crimes -- From "rites" to "rights" -- Courts : in and out of sight, site, and cite -- An iconography for democratic adjudication.

Peter Goodrich presents a unique introduction to the concept of jurisliterature. Highlighting how lawyers have been extraordinarily productive of literary, artistic and political works, Goodrich explores the diversity and imagination of the law and literature tradition. Jurisliterature, he argues, is the source of legal invention and the sign of novelty in judgments.