Prudence is a 1470 oil on panel painting by Piero del Pollaiuolo, now in the Uffizi in Florence. [1]
Florence's Tribunale della Mercanzia (the body overseeing all the city's guilds) commissioned the artist to paint seven works portraying the cardinal virtues in a contract dated 18 August 1469. They were intended to decorated the seat-backs in its audience hall on piazza della Signoria. Charity was the first painting to be completed and was delivered in December 1469.
The commission was temporarily transferred to Botticelli, probably after a delay by Pollaiuolo. Botticelli produced Fortitude before loud protests from Pollaiuolo and his brother Antonio led to a second contract returning the commission to Piero and his studio to produce the remaining six works in the series. In completing it, it is unclear how much of a contribution Antonio made to Piero's work and some art historians have attributed it instead entirely to Antonio. Billi, Albertini and Cruttwell argue from documents that the whole cycle was by Piero, whereas Ullman and others attribute all six works to Antonio based on stylistic comparisons with the few signed works by Antonio, including prints. Yet others attribute the composition of the work to Antonio but the paintings themselves to Piero. [2]
After the magistracy moved into the Uffizi, the paintings were exhibited in the gallery from 1717 onwards after the Tribunale was suppressed. In the 19th century the works were in such a poor state of conservation that only Prudence was exhibited.
The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance.
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli or simply Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. Since then, his paintings have been seen to represent the linear grace of late Italian Gothic and some Early Renaissance painting, even though they date from the latter half of the Italian Renaissance period.
Filippino Lippi was an Italian painter working in Florence, Italy during the later years of the Early Renaissance and first few years of the High Renaissance.
Andrea del Verrocchio, born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, was a sculptor, Italian painter and goldsmith who was a master of an important workshop in Florence. He apparently became known as Verrocchio after the surname of his master, a goldsmith. Few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but a number of important painters were trained at his workshop. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi. His greatest importance was as a sculptor and his last work, the Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, is generally accepted as a masterpiece.
Antonio del Pollaiuolo, also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith, who made important works in all these media, as well as designing works in others, for example vestments, metal embroidery being a medium he worked in at the start of his career.
Piero del Pollaiuolo, whose birth name was Piero Benci, was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. His older brother, by about ten years, was the artist Antonio del Pollaiuolo and the two frequently worked together. Their work shows both classical influences and an interest in human anatomy; according to Vasari, the brothers carried out dissections to improve their knowledge of the subject.
Fortitude is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, finished in 1470. Housed in the Galleria degli Uffizi, in Florence, Italy, Fortitude was the first recorded masterpiece by Botticelli.
The decade of the 1460s in art involved some significant events.
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian is a large altarpiece by the brothers Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo, commissioned by the Florentine Pucci family and now in the National Gallery, London.
The Madonna of the Rose Garden is a tempera on panel painting made by Sandro Botticelli, whose date of between 1469 and 1470 makes it one of his earliest paintings. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Hercules slaying Antaeus, c. 1460, is a painting by the Florentine artist Antonio del Pollaiuolo. It is small at 6 x 3 1/2 inches, painted in egg tempera on a panel of wood. It is now in the Uffizi gallery, Florence.
Profile Portrait of a Young Lady is a 1465 half-length portrait, made with oil-based paint and tempera on a poplar panel, usually attributed to Antonio del Pollaiuolo, although the owning museum, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, now describes this work as by his brother Piero del Pollaiuolo, and as one of its most famous paintings, and as one of the most famous portraits of women from the early Italian Renaissance.
Faith is a 1470 oil on panel painting by Piero del Pollaiuolo, now in the Uffizi in Florence.
Charity is a 1469 oil on panel painting by Piero del Pollaiuolo, now in the Uffizi in Florence.
Justice is a 1470 oil on panel painting by Piero del Pollaiuolo, now in the Uffizi in Florence.
Hope is a 1470 oil on panel painting by Piero del Pollaiuolo, now in the Uffizi in Florence.
Temperance is a 1470 oil on panel painting by Piero del Pollaiuolo, now in the Uffizi in Florence. It represents Temperance, one of the seven virtues of the Catholic Church.
Portrait of a Young Woman is a mixed-technique painting on panel of c. 1470–1472, variously attributed to Piero del Pollaiuolo or his brother Antonio. It is now in Milan in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, which uses the painting as its symbol.
Portrait of a Woman is a c.1475 tempera and oil on panel painting by Antonio or Piero del Pollaiuolo. It has been in the Uffizi in Florence since 1861. Since 1861 it has been misattributed to Piero della Francesca, a young Leonardo da Vinci and Cosimo Rosselli.
Hercules and the Hydra is a c. 1475 tempera grassa-on-panel painting by Antonio del Pollaiuolo, forming a pair with the same artist's Hercules slaying Antaeus. Both works are now in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. It measures 17 cm by 12 cm, small like all his surviving mythological paintings. It is assumed that both these are miniature copies by the artist of two out of the three enormous paintings on canvas of the Labours of Hercules commissioned from Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo by Piero di Cosimo de' Medici for the Sala Grande of the Palazzo Medici in the 1460s, which have now been lost.