Justice, Fortitude, Prudence and Temperance

Providing some relief from the rigorous geometry of the panelling covering the walls and vaults of the chamber are a series of picturesque artworks above the bench where justice was dispensed to settle mercantile disputes. Here a colourful display provides a strong contrast with the dominant brown tones of precious woods. The incipiently humanist matrix of its design echoes the transversal theme of the secular lex mercatoria applied to citizens of the medieval commune, as distinct from local common law, but legitimised by the latter’s auctoritas and based not on transcendent symbolism but on the immanent virtue of proper justice.

Justice was thus dispensed under a series of golden figures, on a cinnabar red background, of Civitas (the rampant Gryphon emblem of Perugia), Arte (the dual gryphons treading a skein of wool, a symbol of the guild) and crowned by gilded bas-relief sculptures of the four Cardinal Virtues Giustizia, Fortezza, Prudenza e Temperanza ((Justice, Fortitude, Prudence and Temperance) in gold-leaf on an azure blue background. 

While Temperance and Prudence are represented using traditional iconography, the other virtues are portrayed somewhat unusually. Fortitude holds a column in one hand and an anvil at her shoulder. Justice is depicted in a Pre-Renaissance manner, without the familiar Greek sword pointing heavenwards, her sword is pointed downwards, thrust into an animal below symbolising wrongdoing. A shield borne in her other hand bears the inscription “SUUM IUSTITIA”.