CK - Law and Administration

2009/2010

CK - Law and Administration

Jurisprudence of the Baroque: A Census of Seventeenth-Century Italian Legal Imprints. Comop. Douglas J. Osler. 3 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. lv, 848, xxix, 831, xxix, 735 + 1 CD-ROM. ill. 25 cm. (Bibliographica iuridica, 4-6; Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, 235-237). ISBN 978-3-465- 03601-2 (vol. 1), ISBN 978-3-465-03604-3 (vol. 2), ISBN 978-3-465-03605-0 (vol. 3): EUR 482 (set)

Douglas Osler, the compiler of this title, has already published three 500-plus-page volumes in the series Bibliographica iuridica. The first two of those volumes cover early printed books in the library of the Max-Planck-Institut für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte [European Legal History] in Frankfurt am Main (see RREA 6:259). The third is his Edoardo Volterra (1904-1984): A Catalog of Early Printed Books in his Library, now in the École Française de Rome (see RREA 12:201. The latest work is in three volumes with over 2,400 pages. It focuses on legal documents published in Italy between 1601 and 1700 mostly in Italian and those in Italian published outside Italy. Not included are documents pertaining to individual laws and trials. A total of 7,730 publications are listed in various sections. The main section contains 5,872 titles; six other specialized sections focus on 1) civil law, 2) canonical law, 3) city statutes, 4) statutes of private corporations, 5) statutes of religious orders and congregations, and 6) statutes of councils and synods.

The main sections are organized by author name marked by a special symbol in front of the first listing of the author’s titles. Also included are life dates, if available, and location of information about persons in publications of legal history. The Baroque titles are only slightly abbreviated. Publisher or printer, bibliographic format, extent of the work, location in printed catalogs and bibliographies, library holdings, and details specific to the title are provided. Not clearly indicated is whether the listings were based on in-person review of the title or whether only printed catalogs and bibliographies were consulted.

The compiler notes in the introduction that, because this Census “represents a first, provisional attempt,” it has a number of shortcomings. In numerous instances, Osler has not used readily available reference sources in order to provide complete bibliographic details for titles. Also to the detriment of the work, he utilized only nine, mostly specialized, libraries as sources and did not consult the catalogs of larger national and regional libraries, even those in Italy. Online catalogs were generally not used. The CD-ROM accompanying the third volume contains a .pdf file of the catalog, but there is no index to aid location of specific information. Even the introduction to the volume addresses only general information about legal publications but fails to discuss the topic in connection with Italy in particular. [sh/jb]

Carl Schmitt: internationale Bibliographie der Primär- und Sekundärliteratur [Carl Schmitt: International Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Literature]. Alain de Benoist. Graz: Ares-Verlag, 2010. 528 p. 24 cm. ISBN 978-3-902475- 66-4: EUR 98

Alain de Benoist’s bibliography is an indispensable aid to research on Carl Schmitt, a scholar of constitutional law and political theologian. Expanding the scope of the 2003 bibliography he published with the Akademie-Verlag in Berlin, which contained only primary works, Benoit updates that section in the present bibliography and adds a good 350 pages of secondary references on Schmitt. Benoist has also included citations to reviews of both primary and secondary titles. He understandably concedes that the citations to these and to periodical articles are less than comprehensive. Still, what he has amassed in his bibliography is impressive. It is also directed to an international readership, as can be seen through his inclusion of citations to works in many languages, with parallel prefatory remarks in German, French, English, Italian and Spanish. A desideratum would have been inclusion of an index. All in all, this is a carefully assembled work that should be acquired by university and other research libraries, and of course, by Schmitt researchers as ready reference. [tk/rlk]

Biographisches Handbuch der preußischen Verwaltungs- und Justizbeamtem 1740- 1806/15 [Biographical Handbook of Prussian Administrative and Legal Officials 1740-1806/15]. Rolf Straubel. 2 vols. München: Saur. xxiv, 1179 p. 24 cm. (Einzelveröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin, 85). ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9: EUR 199.95

According to its editor, the creation of a biographical work documenting Prussian public officials from the administrative and judicial branches from the time of Frederick the Great’s accession in 1740 to the end of the Frederican period in 1806 was a task conceived over a hundred years ago, and indeed, it extends the reach of extant biographical reference works on German civil servants a hundred years back in time. The complete IFB review lists several older general and regional biographical handbooks of German officialdom of the 19th and 20th centuries, for example the Thüringen-Handbuch (see RREA 6:303) published in 2000, but until now there has been no other source covering this particular period and jurisdiction.

The historical research behind the 3,650 entries in the two-volume Biographisches Handbuch is excellent and well-sourced. Each article documents biographical data, relevant details about the official’s social and regional heritage, schools and universities attended, and subsequent career. Appointment and examination documents, among others, are interpreted. Each article contains a brief bibliography. Covered officials include civil servants from the central, provincial, and local levels of administration, from county commissioners and tax assessors to ministers of state. Thankfully, Straubel provides brief yet exhaustive introductory notes for the reader about the organization of the Frederican administrative and judicial offices and hierarchy.

Inexcusably, however, the only intellectual access point to this alphabetically organized handbook is an alphabetical index. Granted, many older biographical compendia share this flaw, but today’s research simply demands indexing by place and by office, so that one can easily look up all officials who worked in a particular place, or occupied a particular office; that is one of the main purposes of biographical reference books on public officials. One must hope that the editors plan a future supplement, either in print or online. Ed. note: the publisher has also made this title available in e-book form, to remedy this lack and improve the use value of this otherwise exemplary, high-quality reference work. [jli/rb]

Next Section
Previous Section
Table of Contents