Overview

Justice Blindfolded gives an overview of the history of “justice” and its iconography through the centuries. Justice has been portrayed as a woman with scales, or holding a sword, or, since the fifteenth century, with her eyes bandaged. This last symbol contains the idea that justice is both impartial and blind, reminding indirectly of the bandaged Christ on the cross, a central figure in the Christian idea of fairness and forgiveness. In this rich and imaginative journey through history and philosophy, Prosperi manages to convey a full account of the ways justice has been described, portrayed and imagined. Translation of Giustizia bendata. Percorsi storici di un'immagine (Einaudi, 2008).

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In this suggestive and original study, Adriano Prosperi traces the evolving iconography of Justice from the medieval period to the modern day, drawing on legal treatises, theological texts, pamphlets, plays, sermons, and over one hundred images ranging from manuscript illuminations to modern tattoos, with the bulk of them from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Nicholas Terpstra, University of Toronto. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Summer 2021), pp. 606-608.

“In this suggestive and original study, Adriano Prosperi traces the evolving iconography of Justice from the medieval period to the modern day, drawing on legal treatises, theological texts, pamphlets, plays, sermons, and over one hundred images ranging from manuscript illuminations to modern tattoos, with the bulk of them from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries.” Nicholas Terpstra, University of Toronto. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Summer 2021), pp. 606–608.

Author Information

Adriano Prosperi, Ph.D. (1968), Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy, is Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History. He has published extensively on the Reformation, the Tridentine Council, and the idea of faith in Western Europe. His most recent books are a study of Luther, Lutero. Gli anni della fede e della libertà (Milan 2017) and a history of the death penalty, Crime and Forgiveness: Christianizing Execution in Medieval Europe (Harvard University Press 2018).

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