Virtue Information

Virtues, Vices, and Liberal Arts.
Among the abstract personalities that are frequently represented in Renaissance art are those of the Seven Virtues, the Seven Vices, and the Liberal Arts. The Seven Virtues, all female, are usually as follows:
Faith is represented as a woman with a chalice or a cross, or both. At her feet is St. Peter.
Hope is a winged woman who raises her hands toward heaven. Her standard attribute is the anchor. St. James the Great is at her feet.
Charity usually has children around her and is nursing one of those. Sometimes she holds flames or a heart. St. John the Evangelist is seated at her feet.
Temperance holds a sword or two vases. At her feet is Scipio Africanus.
Prudence may have two heads, and she holds a mirror and a serpent. At her feet is Solon.
Fortitude may have a sword, club, a shield, a globe, and a lionskin, or a column, in allusion to Samson's destruction of the Philistine temple. At her feet is Samson.
Justice holds scales and a sword. The Emperor Trajan is at her feet.
The first three of these are called the Theological Virtues, while the last four are known as the Cardinal Virtues.
To the Seven Virtues are opposed the Seven Vices, as follows: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. Their attributes are not clearly defined.
In Renaissance painting, the Seven Virtues are sometimes accompanied by the seven Liberal Arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. Their attributes are not clearly defined.