Prudence

Description

The figure, referred to Caccini by eighteenth-century sources stood perhaps in Boboli from its origin but in another place, giacche il Viottolone was made by the Parigi around the early 1730s. It is definitely the Allegory of Prudence, despite Soldini's doubts, responding to the description drawn in Ripa's manual with only the lack of the "moro leaves": "Mirroring means the conjunction of oneself, since no one can regulate his actions if his own faults he does not know. The snake when it is fought opposes the whole body to blows by cocking its head with many turns and gives us à intendere that for virtue ... we must oppose to blows of fortune all our other things however dear ..." "below the helmet has moro leaves," a plant that flourishes with the right climatic conditions. Venturi observed its "broad and wavy tone of ornamental style," reading 1'imagine as the Autumn. The figure is quite unusual compared to the rigor of Caccini's production. The remarkably executed base, the same as that of 'Aesculapius and Hippolytus,' could be pertinent to the statue thus indicating the same provenance for both sculptures