Happy New Year from the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog!

Michael Widener
mascambrone_snip.jpg

The Lillian Goldman Law Library’s 2013 holiday card features an image from one of this year’s acquisitions. The image is the headpiece from the opening chapter in Friar Lorenzo Mascambrone’s Degli asili de’ Christiani ragionamento (Roma: Camera Appostolica, 1731). The book is a vigorous defense of the Catholic Church’s right to grant sanctuary to fugitives, published at a time when Catholic governments were protesting that the Church was coddling criminals and traitors under the guise of sanctuary, and thus threatening public order.

In The Popes and European Revolution (1981), Owen Chadwick summarized Mascambrone’s argument: “The right to punish does not derive from revenge but must intend to reform, it is inseparable in moral law from compassion. … Sanctuaries, however they are at times misused, tend to a chance of reformation. And if this is the duty and interest of the State, how much more is it the duty of the Church? Would a mother chase away a starving child, or fail to protect it from a wild animal? How much more barbarous would bishops be if they chase out of church men who have come to them seeking refuge and comfort?”

The image reinforces the book’s argument. On the left, the female cherub is seated in peaceful Nature. She points out the scales of Justice to the male cherub, holding the fasces (symbol of the magistrate’s power) as he cowers amid the ruins of human civilization. The image recalls the words of The Federalist, No. 51: “Justice is the end of government.”

Happy New Year to all!

– MIKE WIDENER, Rare Book Librarian

Headpiece, Degli asili de' Christiani ragionamento 1731

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