The Return of Astraea

The Medici liked to present their rule in Florence as a golden age come back, and one of their favourite images for it was Astraea. In Virgil's Fourth Eclogue the maiden Justice, who had abandoned the earth when men turned wicked, returns, and the golden age returns with her. This canvas was ordered by Giancarlo de' Medici, a younger brother of the Grand Duke, and Rosa, then working in Florence, painted it around 1640 to 1645, while the Thirty Years' War was still grinding on north of the Alps. The museum reads a longing for peace in it. Astraea comes down on a cloud and hands her scales and sword to peaceful country people, in front of a farmhouse fallen into ruin. Rosa signed it on the stone pedestal at the lower right with a single word, ROSA.