Mike Widener | University of Virginia (original) (raw)

Papers by Mike Widener

Legal Reference Services Quarterly, 2001

SUMMARY. Two former Texas Supreme Court justices recently offered to donate their personal court ... more SUMMARY. Two former Texas Supreme Court justices recently offered to donate their personal court files to the Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas at Austin. These offers forced the Law Library, the Texas Su-preme Court, and the State Archives to confront several issues. ...

This inventory lists the manuscript statutes in the Yale Law Library’s Italian Statute Collection... more This inventory lists the manuscript statutes in the Yale Law Library’s Italian Statute Collection, the largest collection of early Italian statuti outside of Italy. Most of the contents are municipal statutes that govern both civil and criminal matters. A few contain the statutes of guilds (pharmacists of Naples), or statutes covering specific subject areas such as criminal law (Bregaglia Valley), commercial law (Città di Castello, Florence, Montefortino), fishing (Perugia), tariffs (Bologna), or agriculture (Tivoli). The inventory lists complete manuscripts, as well as printed books with manuscript additions.

Periodic summary of scholarly activities of UT Law facultyLa

Government Information Quarterly, 2003

Public Services Issues with Rare and Rrchival Law Materials Michael Widener Editor ... Michael Wi... more Public Services Issues with Rare and Rrchival Law Materials Michael Widener Editor ... Michael Widener Editor Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials Puhlic Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials has been co-published simultaneously as ...

Anuario Mexicano de Historia del Derecho, 1998

... 240-255; McKnight, Joseph W., "Law Books on the Hispanic Frontier", Spanish and Mex... more ... 240-255; McKnight, Joseph W., "Law Books on the Hispanic Frontier", Spanish and Mexican Land Grants and the Law, Malcolm Ebright, ed., Manhattan, Kan., Sunflower University Press, 1989, pp. 74-84. 13 Baade, "Law and Lawyers", p. 246. Page 5. ...

The Public Historian, 2001

Ron Sievert spent two weeks in Kosovo in October 2001 on a training and liason mission for the De... more Ron Sievert spent two weeks in Kosovo in October 2001 on a training and liason mission for the Department of Justice working with Kosovar attorneys on their new procedural code and answering questions on pending cases growing out of the conflict with Serbia.

is the recipient of the 2000 Children's Award from Texas CASA, a statewide organization of volunt... more is the recipient of the 2000 Children's Award from Texas CASA, a statewide organization of volunteer lay advocates for children, in recognition of her work on behalf of Texas children. In presenting the award on Sept. 8, 2000, Judge John Specia of San Antonio noted Bryant's efforts, as a member of the Supreme Court Task Force on Foster Care, to improve the judicial system for resolving cases concerning children in temporary foster care. Henry Hu was quoted in the Aug. 13, 2000, Washington Post on strategies for dealing with shares of companies potentially involved in regulatory or legal battles. Hu was quoted in two articles in the Aug. 21, 2000, Dallas Morning News, one on the usefulness of historical data on stock market performance in election years and the other on shifts in Wall Street's political campaign contributions.

Barbara Hines was quoted in the Austin Chronicle, Feb. 9, 2001, on the immigration status of feat... more Barbara Hines was quoted in the Austin Chronicle, Feb. 9, 2001, on the immigration status of featherweight boxing title contender Jesus Chavez. Hines was interviewed on Feb. 9, 2001, by News 8 Austin regarding the return of Jesus Chavez to the U.S. as a permanent resident.

Henry Hu was appointed in January 2001 by NASD Regulation's Board of Directors to serve on the e-... more Henry Hu was appointed in January 2001 by NASD Regulation's Board of Directors to serve on the e-Brokerage Committee. Hu had been serving and continues to serve as a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers' Legal Advisory Board.

Anthony Reese was quoted on the possible liability of Napster's venture capital investors for cop... more Anthony Reese was quoted on the possible liability of Napster's venture capital investors for copyright infringement in Upside Today, Aug. 4, 2000, at <www.upside.com/texis/mvm/story?id=3989ef760>. Reese was quoted in the Daily Texan, Aug. 3, 2000, on Napster's legal problems.

Legal Reference Services Quarterly, 2001

Periodic summary of scholarly activities of UT Law facultyLa

Government Information Quarterly, 2003

Anuario Mexicano de Historia del Derecho, 1998

The Public Historian, 2001

The Pope is universally known as the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church. But it is oft... more The Pope is universally known as the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church. But it is often forgotten that for much of the papacy's history the Pope was the most important judicial and legislative authority in western Europe. An exhibition at the Yale Law Library, "The Pope's Other Jobs: Judge and Lawgiver," illustrates the Pope’s legal responsibilities throughout history using rare books and a medieval manuscript from the Law Library's outstanding collection.
Winroth, Anders, and Widener, Michael. "The Pope's Other Jobs: Judge and Lawgiver" / an exhibition curated by Anders Winroth and Michael Widener. (2015).

This exhibit highlights the intimate connection between legal literature and legal education. It ... more This exhibit highlights the intimate connection between legal literature and legal education. It focuses on the way that the usage of one group in particular – students – helped shape both the content and the form of legal literature over the course of nearly 15 centuries of legal study.

A hundred years ago, a bomb explosion was the pretext that San Francisco authorities needed to pr... more A hundred years ago, a bomb explosion was the pretext that San Francisco authorities needed to prosecute the militant left-wing labor organizer Tom Mooney on trumped-up murder charges. Mooney’s false conviction and death sentence set off a 22-year campaign that proved Mooney had been framed, made him one of the world’s most famous Americans, and eventually resulted in his exoneration. The campaign also created an enormous number of print and visual materials, including legal briefs, books, pamphlets, movies, flyers, stamps, poetry, and music. The examples in this exhibition are only a few of the over 150 items in Yale Law Library’s collection on the Mooney case, housed in the Rare Book Collection. They form a rich resource for studying the Mooney case, the American Left in the interwar years, and the emergence of modern media campaigns.

The Venetian Republic, a prosperous and powerful state in Renaissance Europe, cultivated a mythic... more The Venetian Republic, a prosperous and powerful state in Renaissance Europe, cultivated a mythical image of stability, liberty, and beauty. This image-making is celebrated in a new Yale Law Library exhibition, "Representing the Law in the Most Serene Republic: Images of Authority from Renaissance Venice," on view from September 20 through December 15, 2016.

Drawing primarily on the outstanding collection of Italian law books in the Yale Law Library's Rare Book Collection, the exhibition features 25 objects of remarkable splendor and historical significance. These include illuminated manuscripts, illustrated books, prints, drawings, coins, and medals, eight of which are on loan from the Yale University Art Gallery and three reproduced from an exceptional Renaissance album of watercolors in the Beinecke Library.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Venice played a central role in the political and economic affairs of Europe, ruling an empire that extended from northern Italy, down the Adriatic, to the eastern Mediterranean. By the year 1500, Venice could claim that it had been a sovereign republic for more than a millennium. Indeed, the city was so highly esteemed for its stable government, selfless leaders, and free citizens that it came to be known as "La Serenissima," the Most Serene Republic.

The exhibition introduces the significant offices and symbols of the Venetian state, and explains how laws were crafted, debated, publicized, and broken. Its protagonists are the doge and highest magistrates of Venice, the governors appointed to rule the Republic’s territories, the lawmakers in the Senate, and the lawbreakers consigned to prison or the galleys—all of them illustrated in finely executed illuminations, drawings, prints, and numismatic portraits.

As the Rare Book Librarian in the Yale Law Library from 2006 until my retirement in 2021, I curat... more As the Rare Book Librarian in the Yale Law Library from 2006 until my retirement in 2021, I curated the largest collection of Italian statuti outside of Italy. I describe the collection's origin and my efforts to grow it and to its visibility and use through exhibitions, digitization, and cooperative projects with Italian institutions and scholars. I discuss the need for an English-language guide to the genre, and offer suggestions on how Italian statuti intersect with the field of book history, in terms of their physical attributes and the study of their printing history, and how book history can inform legal history.