Charity

By the middle of the 16th century, Florence had a court again, and its painters were expected to dazzle. Charity, one of the three theological virtues alongside Faith and Hope, is shown the way the age liked its virtues, as a serene woman surrounded by children who climb and cling to her. Salviati builds the four bodies as if they were one, each limb answering another, so the group reads as a single knot of movement. That interlocking design was exactly what Giorgio Vasari, who knew Salviati well, praised as the bella maniera, the beautiful manner, where grace and difficulty matter as much as the subject. The poses look back to Michelangelo. The twisting woman and the children echo his Doni Tondo, then in Florence for anyone to study. One child tugs at her robe while the others reach across her shoulder and thigh, trading glances. Salviati had spent years in Rome among ancient sculpture and the Vatican frescoes, and that polish is here in the cool colour and the marble-smooth flesh.