Even the word “virtue” is inactive in quotidian social conversation. Nor does it have a natural place in their own conversation, public or private, in church or at home or on campus. The consensus of my students was that the virtue of prudence is largely absent from the ordinary discourse of contemporary society. This strange figure represents the virtue of Prudence. What are we to make of this two-faced figure, surely enigmatic, even disconcerting, to most of us nowadays? A lock of the young woman’s hair merges into the man’s long beard. The back of her head is in fact the face of a mature man. A leafy wreath of fruit (among them, grapes, pinecones, cucumbers) frames the figure of a young woman who holds a mirror in her right hand while grasping a snake in her left hand. Just over five feet in diameter, this circular rondel holds a commanding presence.
Andrea was a nephew of Luca della Robbia, who, in the 1450s, perfected the recipe for the shiny, colorful, durable glazed terracotta that became the trademark medium of several generations of the Della Robbia family. The glazed terracotta sculpture in the photograph (adjacent) is the work of the Florentine ceramic artist Andrea della Robbia around 1475.
