Lady Justice: An Anatomy of Allegory

Dismembers and remembers the sensual and spiritual body of Lady Justice in a wholly novel interpretation of the optical allegory of Iustitia.

• Presents an original theory of the blindfold on Justice
• Includes case studies of the allegorical significance of all of the attributes of Justice
• Draws on early modern sources including forensic speeches, epigrams, eulogies, formal discourses and commentaries on cases to offer a new paradigm of judicial actio
• Presents new critical analyses of key Latin texts, subjecting them to critical philological scrutiny for the first time
• Categorizes images of Lady Justice through a range of parameters: their plasticity, accessibility, their effect of presence, their material link to the space dispositive and their plastic salience

Lady Justice: An Anatomy of Allegory leaves conventional readings of this pivotal figure in European legal history far behind. Hayaert's study brings together an analysis of thousands of images from the period 1400 – 1600, many of them previously overlooked, including artwork, frontispieces, legal texts, sculptures and statues in public spaces and in court buildings scattered across six countries. Lady Justice is taken apart and considered afresh - organ by organ, limb by limb, digit by digit, making a case for a treatment of allegory in all its complexity, ambiguity and affective force.

This unique interdisciplinary study exceeds the iconographic orthodoxy of art historians and the reductive interpretations of legal historians alike. Setting aside styles and schools, ranging widely across time and space, Hayaert identifies Lady Justice as the seat of law's conscience, an archetype of the judge's daimon, and an affective, numinous address to all who, over the course of seven centuries, have found themselves moved by her redolent and inextinguishable presence.