As usual, clicking on the title of this wall painting will bring up some information about it.
Clicking on the down arrow will bring you to the small panels beneath this painting (“Jus-tinian” and “Gregory”) on the same wall.
Clicking with the option key down brings you to a map of the room; with shift and option to a map of all four of Raphael’s rooms.
Click on this window to put it away.
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This wall painting represents three of the four “cardinal” virtues, virtues which were discussed almost from the beginning of Greek philosophy, though later supplemented by the three “theological virtues” (Faith, Hope, and Charity). On the left is Courage, recognizable (in a better reproduction) by the helmet and armor she’s wearing, and by the small lion she’s stroking with her left hand. On the right, Temperance, recognizable mainly through her demurring and modest gesture, and also by the reins she is holding in her right hand. In the center, Prudence. At the back of her head appears a second face, sculpted in her hair. This is no illusion: a fairly standard Renaissance representation of prudence depicts it with two heads or faces. It is the virtue which knows how to look ahead and behind. But where is Justice, the fourth of the cardinal virtues? Absent from this picture, apparently, because embodied in the secular and religious laws of Justinian and Gregory, in the panels just below this. Click the down arrow once you’ve closed this window.
The cherubs are usually identified with the theological virtues, but there is controversy about exactly how.