The Art of Memory and the Allegorical Personification of Justice

Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities Volume 24 | Issue 1 Article 12 January 2012 The Art of Memory and the Allegorical Personification of Justice Ruth Weisberg Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh Part of the History Commons, and the Law Commons Recommended Citation Ruth Weisberg, The Art of Memory and the Allegorical Personification of Justice, 24 Yale J.L. & Human. (2012). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh/vol24/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities by an authorized editor of Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact . Weisberg: The Art of Memory and the Allegorical Personification of Justice The Art of Memory and the Allegorical Personification of Justice Ruth Weisberg It is really intriguing that the figure of Justice has persisted into modem times, an almost singular survival from an earlier period in which allegorical personifications were commonplace. And just what is an "allegorical personification"? Although we may be familiar with allegory as a representation of an abstract idea or concept usually involving humans or animals, we tend to be less knowledgeable in regard to allegory as a system of complex visual signs. Figures such as Justice have traditionally been accompanied by significant props or material attributes that identified them and elucidated their meaning. They were part of a vast array of embodiments or personifications that served multiple purposes, the most important of which was the organization of an elaborate conceptual system of values. More specifically, Justice, traditionally grouped with the Cardinal Virtues, originated in ancient Greece. The Cardinal Virtues typically consisted of Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance, all of which had their accompanying attributes. For example, Fortitude might be depicted escorted by a lion or embracing a broken column and Temperance often holds a bridle. While certain of these props are unvarying, there was significant leeway in the choice of attributes over the centuries. E.H. Gombrich writes of the customary way of constructing an allegorical personification in which "an image or a concept can be explicated by means of attributes and it is really a matter of taste or tact how far the poet or artist wishes to go in piling up these specifications, how many attributes he wants to give Prudence to match her definition."' * Professor,Roski School of Fine Arts, University of Southern California. The author would like to thank Dennis Curtis, Robert J. Lieber, Opher Mansour, and Judith Resnik for their valuable comments. 1. E.H. Gombrich, Personification,in CLASSICAL INFLUENCES IN EUROPEAN CULTURE A.D. 500- 1500, at 247-57 (R.R. Bolgar ed., 1971). 259 Published by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository, 2012 1 Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, Vol. 24, Iss. 1 [2012], Art. 12 260 Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities [Vol. 24:259 e9l- IVSTICIA Oki;- Figure 1. lusticia (Justice), Cornelis Matsys, circa 1543-1544. Copyright: Warburg Institute, University of London. In the case of Justice, she is characteristically accompanied by her props of scales, blindfold, and sword. Justice is not passive; she bears arms in the form of a sword. The scales are a device for the weighing of evidence in order to come to a just conclusion. The blindfold is more ambiguous. It was first used in the fifteenth century to symbolize impartiality but has been less consistently employed in recent years. Originally those accompanying attributes would have been easily understood. They were meant to be "read," a skill we have lost in relation to the other three figures of Virtue that have fallen away along with the visual codes related to myriad additional groupings of Virtues and Vices. How many of us would recognize that a seated woman in classical garb gazing into a mirror with the mask of an aged face on the back of her head symbolizes Prudence? Although visual symbols do exist in the twenty- https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh/vol24/iss1/12 2 Weisberg: The Art of Memory and the Allegorical Personification of Justice 2012] Weisberg 261 Figure 2. Prudence,Agostino Veneziano, 1516. Copyright: Warburg Institute, University of London. first century-one need only think of the constant barrage of images that are part of advertising on television, billboards, and the Internet to confirm this impression-our current reliance on the visual with or without text is quite different from the rigorous and pervasive visual systems passed down from the Classical and Christian past. In order to understand or "read" these allegorical figures of the Virtues and Vices, and the complex conceptual structure of thought that they referenced, one must first imagine ancient civilizations (as well as more recent cultures) with very limited means for the replication of texts. At the same time the ability to memorize long, elaborate and self-assured oration was highly prized. So, contrary to popular assumptions, these allegorical figures were not meant for an illiterate public. Although some visual representations of ideas certainly served a less literate public, the audience for these sophisticated visual personifications constituted a far more literate elite. The scholar Frances Yates greatly renewed academic interest in this history with her 1966 work The Art of Memory.2 In that groundbreaking study of how people learned to retain and present large bodies of knowledge before the invention of the printing press, Yates traces the art of memory from its origins in Greek oratory, through its more Christian 2. FRANCES A. YATES, THE ART OF MEMORY (1966). Published by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository, 2012 3 Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, Vol. 24, Iss. 1 [2012], Art. 12 262 Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities [Vol. 24:259 uses in the Middle Ages, to the occult and complex forms it took in the Renaissance, and ultimately to its decline in the seventeenth century. The subject of Yates's book is probably unfamiliar to most modem readers. Yates thoughtfully situates the art of memory historically: Few people know that the Greeks, who invented many arts, invented an art of memory which, like their other arts, was passed on to Rome whence it descended in the European tradition. This art seeks to memorise through a technique of impressing "places" and "images" on memory. It has usually been classed as "mnemotechnics," which in modern times seems a rather unimportant branch of human activity. But in the ages before printing a trained memory was vitally important ... . Some two millennia later and in contrast to the experience of the Greeks and Romans, it is difficult for us, in an age of constant access to information via books, newspapers and (...truncated)