Misplaced Pages

Lady Justice

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Thardman22 (talk | contribs) at 15:55, 24 January 2009 (→Justice in sculpture: ref text for statue). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 15:55, 24 January 2009 by Thardman22 (talk | contribs) (→Justice in sculpture: ref text for statue)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) "Lady Justice" or "Lord Justice" is also the title of judges on the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
Lady Justice

Lady Justice (Iustitia, the Roman Goddess of Justice and sometimes, simply "Justice") is an allegorical personification of the moral force that underlies the legal system.

Depiction

Since the Renaissance, Justitia has frequently been depicted as a matron carrying a sword and measuring balances, and sometimes wearing a blindfold. Her modern iconography, which frequently adorns courthouses and courtrooms, conflates the attributes of several goddesses who embodied Right Rule for Greeks and Romans, blending Roman blindfolded Fortuna (luck) with Hellenistic Greek Tyche (fate), and sword-carrying Nemesis (vengence).

Justitia's attributes parallel those of the Hellenic deities Themis and Dike. Themis was the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom, in her aspect as the personification of the divine rightness of law. However, the mythological connection is not a direct one. A more appropriate comparison is Themis' daughter Dike, who was imagined carrying scales:

"If some god had been holding level the balance of Dike"

is an image in a surviving fragment of Bacchylides's poetry.

Justitia is most often depicted with a set of weighing scales typically suspended from her left hand, upon which she measures the strengths of a case's support and opposition. She is also often seen carrying a double-edged sword in her right hand, symbolizing the power of Reason and Justice, which may be wielded either for or against any party.

Some more modern interpretations see Justitia as a pregnant woman in the second trimester; Lady Justice is no callow maiden. A modern mass-produced and widely distributed statuette of "La Justitia" represents her as blindfolded with the Balances upraised in one hand, with her mighty sword in relaxed ready rest with point before the feet and hilt behind the same hip. She stands presenting her weighing-balance, moving forward to rest, sword ready to rise. Beneath the foot is crushed the neck of a coiling serpent; the serpent is crushed upon the Book of Law, and all are set on rocky ground. See below for this image, "Mayer's Justitia".

Blindfold

As stated above, Lady Justice is often depicted wearing a blindfold. This is done in order to indicate that justice is (or should be) meted out objectively, without fear or favor, regardless of the identity, power, or weakness: blind justice and blind impartiality. The earliest Roman coins depicted Justitia with the sword on one hand and the scale on the other, but with her eyes uncovered. Justitia was only commonly represented as "blind" since about the end of the fifteenth century. The first known representation of blind Justice is Hans Gieng's 1543 statue on the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen (Fountain of Justice) in Berne.

Justice in sculpture

References

  1. See "The Scales of Justice as Represented in Engravings, Emblems, Reliefs and Sculptures of Early Modern Europe" in G. Lamoine, ed., Images et representations de la justice du XVie au XIXe siecle (Toulouse: University of Toulose-Le Mirail, 1983)" at page 8.

External links

Categories:
Lady Justice Add topic