Justice 1560 - 1599

Bartolomeo Ammanati created this bronze statuette of Justice in sixteenth-century Italy. It shows a female figure holding aloft a pair of scales, a classical symbol of jurisprudence that’s been around for millennia. But why the helmet? The female personification of Justice has its roots in ancient Roman art, but Ammanati's donned figure is more like Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare. It was a time of great turmoil, with constant wars between city-states. Justice, it seems, needed to be armed. To properly understand this statuette, we need to consider the political context of Renaissance Italy. Who was responsible for dispensing Justice? What were the systems of law and order? What were the social classes and power structures that influenced legal decisions? These are the questions that an art historian asks. By consulting archives, legal documents, and other historical sources, we can begin to unravel the complex meanings embedded within this small bronze figure.