| Description | Female standing figure of Virtue triumphs over the crouching male figure of vice, overpowering him by putting her knee on his back, gracefully placing her weight on him without losing her balance, seemingly effortless. A fine bronze reduction with variations of the marble group 'Florence triumphant over Pisa', by Giambologna, popularly known as 'virtue and vice' which is now in the Bargello, Florence. Another slightly smaller version of the same group by Soldani is in the Frick Collection, New York. It is common for the bases of Soldani bronzes to differ slightly, however, and in all other respects the two casts are identical. Giambologna designed the group in 1564 for the wedding of Francesco de’ Medici as a companion piece to Michelangelo’s stone sculpture "The Victory", which in the seventeenth century was often also called "The Triumph of Virtue over Vice". The personification of Florence, or an allegory of Virtue, overcomes a man cowering on the ground, and represents either vice or the city of Pisa, according to interpretation. The triumph is expressed by a gesture of physical dominance. The closely interwoven figures create a spiraling pyramid structure that also remains in a frontal composition, because the original group was to be installed in a niche. The work has openings trough that integrate the lower figure more fully into the overall action. |
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