Сила духа

This is the earliest painting we can firmly date to Botticelli, made in the early 1470s when he was still in his mid-twenties and largely unknown. It was meant to hang with six others in the hall of Florence's merchant court, where disputes over money and trade were settled, each panel a Virtue watching over the proceedings. The other six went to the workshop of an established master, Piero del Pollaiuolo. Botticelli slipped in through a Medici connection and was handed this single figure, Fortitude, which reportedly annoyed Pollaiuolo enough that the newcomer got no more of the job. You can spot the outsider even in the wood. The other panels are painted on cypress, while this one is poplar, the timber Botticelli happened to be using.