The Madonna of Justice

For about two centuries this canvas hung among the law courts of the Doge's Palace in Genoa. It was probably painted for the palace, and the Louvre records it in the hall of the Sindacatori, the magistrates who reviewed the conduct of public officials, and later in the court of appeal. The Virgin and Child sit on clouds above an angel who holds open a book, and on its pages are the words suprema lex esto, let it be the supreme law, the closing words of a famous maxim of Cicero. Around them lie the instruments of justice.

In 1811, when Genoa had been absorbed into Napoleon's empire, the picture was taken down and sent to France. It entered the Louvre in 1813 and went on show in the Musée Napoléon the next year, and in 1815, when so many seized works went back to their owners, this one stayed in Paris. The canvas has since been transferred twice. Strozzi painted it in Genoa, in the first quarter of the 17th century.