Fortitude
When Botticelli received this commission in 1470, he was just an unknown young painter in Florence. This painting was his first significant public commission — and the reason it came to him was that Lorenzo de’ Medici put in a word on his behalf. From that point on, Botticelli’s name began to be remembered across Florence. The painting now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery, considered one of the earliest works where you can unmistakably recognize Botticelli’s hand.
The Florentine “Merchant’s Court” (Arte della Mercanzia) decided in 1469 to commission a set of seven paintings representing the seven Virtues — Fortitude, Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Faith, Hope, and Charity. They hired Piero del Pollaiuolo as the lead artist — the brother of another painter featured in this very exhibition. Six would be painted by Pollaiuolo, but the final one was maneuvered to Botticelli through Lorenzo’s influence. Pollaiuolo was furious; the dispute is on record. It was through this “pulled strings” commission that Botticelli took the first step toward establishing his reputation.
The figure of Fortitude is a woman — Virtues were traditionally depicted as female in iconographic convention — seated on an ornately decorated throne, holding a scepter, dressed in armor. But if you look carefully, her posture is not triumphant at all. Her gaze is slightly downcast, her shoulders subtly relaxed, and her grip on the scepter is almost casual, as if holding an ordinary object. This “quiet strength” is the fundamental difference between Botticelli and most of his contemporaries: he wasn’t painting postures, he was painting inner states.
The armor’s decoration is extraordinarily refined — the ornamental patterns at the collar and sleeves, and the carved details on the throne’s backrest, all reveal Botticelli’s obsession with decorative detail. This quality would later develop into his most iconic visual language in Primavera and The Birth of Venus. This Fortitude is the earliest testing ground for that aesthetic system. Worth noting: the treatment of the figure’s face and neck already displays the slightly tilted, introspective expression he would habitually use when painting Madonnas in later years.
The seven Virtues fall into two categories: four “cardinal virtues” (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance) derived from ancient Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle; and three “theological virtues” (Faith, Hope, Charity) from the New Testament. Hanging painted Virtues in courtrooms or civic halls was a political statement: our judgments are morally grounded, guided by virtue rather than by arbitrary human will. The Merchant’s Court used this series to declare: our commercial arbitration is guided by divine and philosophical virtue. This is the quintessential Renaissance operation of “using art as public relations.”
This is one of the most famous “repayments” in all of Renaissance art history. In 1475, Botticelli painted Lorenzo de’ Medici and his family into the Adoration of the Magi. Several generations of the Medici appeared in that painting as the Three Magi, kneeling before the newborn Christ — both a tribute and a piece of political propaganda. Lorenzo was 23 that year, already the effective ruler of Florence. The relationship between Lorenzo and Botticelli, which began with this Fortitude commission, would last nearly twenty years, until Lorenzo’s death in 1492.