Il palazzaccio at the beginning of the 20th century

Dear all,

your collegue Flava Mancini sent me these old pictures on the Court of Cassation taken when it was under construction or after the inauguration (1911). You can also see a beautiful picture of the entire area, with Castel Sant'Angelo in the background and the inauguration of the monument dedicated to Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour (1895): enjoy!

NO CLASS ON WEDNESDAY!

Dear all,
there will be no L&H class next Wednesday (5th May). Prof. Cristina Vano will start her classes on Thursday.
All best

EXAM!

Dear all,

we finally know the date of the exam (so called "preappello"). You are not obliged but certainly invited to take the written exam on this date in May so that you will only have to briefly discuss your paper later, during the ordinary sessions (the L&H oral exam will take place at the same time as the exam of "Storia del diritto medievale e moderno", Prof. Conte).

Date of the written exam ("preappello"):

Wednesday 19th May 2010 at 14:00, room 8

(Possible) dates of the oral exam (you can choose the one you prefer):

1) 9th June 2010 at 9:00

2) 24th June 2010 at 9:00

3) 21st July 2010 at 15:00

4) 7th September 2010

Please check the dates of the oral exam during the month of June: it is easy as they are the same dates of the "Storia del diritto medievale e moderno" exam.

* The written exam will consist in two questions, the first one will be about the Law and the Humanities movement in general and the second one will be on the topic that you prefer among the ones on which we focused our attention during the course (there will be at least one question for each topic). You have to base your answers not only on your personal opinions but also on the readings. You have to write a kind of short essay, not to answer on a strict question like, e.g., a date or the name of an author.

**The oral exam will consist in a brief discussion of your paper.

Music and...Human Rights!

Dear all,

your collegue Filippo Mattioli sent me a description of a very original lecture that took place at the Harvard Kennedy School on April 27th. I really think you might be interested:

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/events/2010/month04/Musicians_27.php

"Lorenzo Cherubini, a.k.a “Jovanotti”, has been invited to Harvard University to give a talk at a conference on "Music and Human Rights". The meeting has been proposed and organized by Italian Society at Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Consulate General of Italy in Boston. This has been the first time that an Italian musician has been asked to address students about this topic at Harvard.

Post-war popular music and its best musicians have always been linked to the promotion of Human Rights and Jovanotti is not an exception. He has been asked to talk to students about his decades long experience in Human Rights issues. He elucidated the relationship that exists between popular music and the diffusion and defense of Human Rights around the world.

From the very beginning of his career Lorenzo has used the power of his public image to promote Human Rights and fight oppression. Because he isn't ideologically driven, he is considered an extremely credible figure by the new generation. At Harvard he has gone into detail about his experience as a Human Rights champion, and has talked about successes and failures, opportunities and challenges, idealism and disillusionment. He gave a true "lecture" from the point of view of an artist based in Italy, a "peripheral" country relative to the great flows of global information, but not an irrelevant country, because Italy has made much progress in the great history of Human Rights and international solidarity.

The artist says that “true” music is indeed “liberation”. “Because in the global and interconnected world where we live, music touches the roots of individuals. I am convinced that if American Constitution should be written today, the sentence “all men are created equal” would not be there anymore [N.d.R. The sentence quoted is indeed placed in the Declaration of Independence by Jefferson]. I think that the word “equal” would be replaced by the word “unique”.” Jovanotti points out this universal way to be unique through his music. An international method of communication, that gives a particular importance to the Italian origins of the artist, as he says. “That is true. I believe that people feel my “Italianity”. I do not know what it exactly means: because I was birth there, this way of being is natural for me, but I know that my message reaches people also because it comes from there [N.d.R. from Italy]. It is a way of being positive that people share”.

Can you stay a little bit longer tomorrow?

Dear all,
at the end we decided to try again tomorrow and watch together the rest of the movie. We have to watch it at the beginning of the lesson and maybe we will finish at 12:00. Could you stay a little bit longer? I hope that at least some of you will. We will bring 2 different laptops...
See you tomorrow!

28th-30th April: Prof. Conde on Law and Cinema

Dear all,
after having talked a little bit about Orson Welles' "The Trial" last week, during the next classes Prof. Conde - from the University of Huelva (Spain) - will really introduce us to the Law and Cinema movement from the very peculiar point of view of censorship. I am sure you will enjoy it!

ABSTRACT

*
The lectures will introduce the ‘law and cinema’ contemporary scholarship, trying to look critically (from a european perspective) at some of its premises and results.
Therefore we will focus on underline one of the possible intersections between law and films: that of ‘cinema in law’ (or law on cinema). This approach is by far much less attended (and maybe less ‘funny’, more ‘serious’) than the classical ‘law in cinema’ studies or the (amusing and even ‘worrying’) ‘law as cinema/cinema as law’ debates.
More specifically we will tackle some US Supreme Court decisions (and indecisions) to concisely describe the way in which censorship on films has been –constitutionally and legally- formulated in the twentieth century.
The account should serve as an example –and encouragement- for those students interested in the development of similar subjects, which are not necessarily involved with totalitarian regimes or tendencies.
And above all, it is a proposal –and a provocation- concerning the unavoidable (self)analysis about the (individual, social, juridical, economical) limits and burdens of freedom of speech.

*

READINGS

*
A)
- The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 98, No.8, “Popular Legal Culture” (June 1989) (“Introduction”, pp. 1545-1558; Lawrence M. Friedman, “Law, Lawyers, and Popular Culture”, pp. 1579-1606)

- Stefan Machura/Peter Robson (eds.), Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 28, No. 1, “Law and Film” (March 2001). The “Introduction”, pp.1-8, includes a selected bibliography (1986-1999)

B)

- “Motion Pictures and the First Amendment”, The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 60, No. 4. (April 1951), pp. 696-719.
- John Wertheimer, “Mutual Film Reviewed: The Movies, Censorship, and Free Speech in Progressive America”, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Apr., 1993), pp. 158-189.

*

Esteban Conde's CV:

*

Esteban Conde (Barcelona, 1971), Legal Historian (Universities of Barcelona –Autónoma- and now Huelva), received his Ph.D. in Law in 2003. He has written two books (1998, 2006) about the main (and constructive) role played by ‘enlightened’ censorship in Spain, and several articles on police power (its metaphores, tradition and development at the end of the Ancien Régime).
Over the past five years, he has used some interdisciplinary approaches as a tool to teach legal history: litterature and law, and more recently cinema and law.

Court of Cassation Tour?

Hi everybody!

Well, Flavia found a way to visit the "Palazzaccio" too...what do you think about that?

"I’ve found an association that organizes a guided tour inside our Palazzaccio. It costs 10E and takes almost one hour, the guide that will explain us the history of the building from an architectural point of view. We can choose a day, we can go at anytime and the tour lasts almost one hour.We can contact Francesca Lutri, that is the one to whom I’ve just talked, and propose her some dates and times, so she will ask for the authorization to the Palace.For further information you can surf on the web site below:

http://nuke.ideandoroma.com/ProgrammaGenerale/VisitaalPalazzodiGiustiziaPalazzaccio/tabid/61/Default.aspxFor me it would be easier on Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s afternoons or on Saturday.

Let me know if you are interested in going"

Theater: Giobbe Covatta on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Dear all,
Flavia Famà posted this comment but I think that it is useful to write it directly as a post, so that you will all have a look at it.

"Hi everybody! I have a proposal about a theatrical performance for this weekend. It is a play performed by Giobbe Covatta in Brancaccio theatre which is entitled “ 30”. This is the number of the articles of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. You probably know that Covatta is an important Amref testimonial, he’s been helping Africa for years and he use the money he earns with his performances to stay there helping concretely who is in needs.In this play he will talk about these articles and the related rights ironically, as he always do, and he will show us the gap between the written laws and the practical situation. I am going on Saturday 24th with some friends, I’ll be happy if some of you will join us, but you can go whenever you want from today, you can find reduced tickets in our “Biglietteria Universitaria”.I put the link:http://www.teatrobrancaccio.it/content/view/184/"

21st-23rd April: Dr. Gialdroni on Law & Architecture (& Cinema)

Dear all,
next week we are going to have a look at the relation between law and architecture in France and in Italy, with particular focus on the 19th century. The last class will be dedicated to Orson Welles' "The Trial" (1962), based on the famous and homonymous novel by Franz Kafka. The Italian Court of Cassation was, in fact, one of the sets of this controversial movie.

Outline:
TEMPLES OF JUSTICE:
France, Italy and...Kafka
1st class
Paris: The "Palais de Justice"
2nd class
Rome: The "Palazzaccio"
3rd class
Kafka, Welles and the Italian Court of Cassation

Readings:
Terry Rossi Kirk, The Politicization of the Landscape of Roma Capitale and the Symbolic Role of the Palazzo di Giustizia, in "Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée", 109.1 (2006), pp. 89-114.

Dennis E. Curtis, Judith Resnik, Images of Justice, in "Yale Law Journal" 96 (1986-1987), pp. 1727-1772.

Martha S. Robinson, The Law of the State in Kafka's The Trial, in "ALSA Forum" 6.2 (1982), pp 127-148.

l

14th-16th April: Prof. Martyn on Law and Iconography

Dear all,

this week we will have another guest from Belgium, Prof. Georges Martyn from Ghent University, who will talk about a very different but certainly fascinating topic: law and iconography. Here you can find the complete list of suggested readings as well as Prof. Martyn cv. We will focus on the first 4 readings.

1) C. HAIGHT FARLEY, “Imagining the law”, in A. SARAT, M. ANDERSON &C.O. FRANK (eds.), Law and the Humanities. An introduction, Cambridge,University Press, 2010, 292-312.

2) G. MARTYN, “Painted Exempla Iustitiae in the Southern Netherlands”in R. SCHULZE (ed.), Symbolische Kommunikation voor Gericht in der FrühenNeuzeit (= Schriften zur Europäischen Rechts- und Verfassungsgeschichte,LI), Berlijn, Duncker & Humblot, 2006, 335-356.

3) S. BOLLA, “L’avvocato con gli stivali. Divagazioni sull’immaginedell’avvocato nella cultura popolare” in Forschungen zur Rechtsarchäologieund Rechtlichen Volkskunde, X, Zürich, 1988, 85-125.

4) S. L'ENGLE, "Legal Iconography", in S. L’ENGLE and R. GIBBS (eds.), Illuminating the Law. Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge Collections (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum 3 November – 16 December 2001), London, 2001, 75-104.

5) A.H. MANCHESTER and M.A. BECKER-MOELANDS, “An introduction to iconographical studies of legal history” in W.M. GORDON and T.D. FERGUS(eds.), Legal history in the making. Proceedings of the ninth British legalhistory conference, Glasgow, 1989, London, 1991, 85-94.

Outline:
Wednesday: Introduction on Law and Iconography (articles by HAIGHT-FARLEY and MANCHESTER/BECKER-MOELANDS).
Thursday: The history of the allegory of Lady Justice (articles by L'ENGLE and BOLLA).
Friday: Late medieval Flemish 'exempla iustitiae' (article by MARTYN).

Prof. Martyn's CV:
Georges Martyn (Avelgem (B), 1966) studied Law (1984-89) and Medieval Studies (1989-91) in Leuven and received his Ph.D. in Legal History at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1996. He has been an ‘advocaat’ (barrister/lawyer) between 1992 and 2008 and is a substitute justice of the peace in Kortrijk (B) since 1999. He is professor at the University of Ghent (Department of Jurisprudence and Legal History) since 1999. He teaches and published books on ‘History of Politics and Public Law’, ‘General Introduction to Belgian Law’ and ‘Legal Methodology’. His scientific articles consider the history of legislation in the Netherlands in early modern times, the reception of Roman law, the evolution of the sources of the law in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and legal iconography (http://www.rechtsgeschiedenis.be/).

Why don't you write more?

As I've told you, it is absolutely important to read the readings and to write some of your thoughts and meanings about the lectures you are following in class. This is also important for your evaluation. So please, don't be shy and start writing interesting or stupid comments on this blog!