Fortitude

Fortitude (Italian: Fortezza) is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, finished in 1470. Housed in the Galleria degli Uffizi, in Florence, Italy, Fortitude was the first recorded masterpiece by Botticelli. This work originally belonged to a set of seven panels representing Virtues, intended to decorate the Tribunal Hall of Palazzo della Signoria in Florence. The other six panels are painted by Piero del Pollaiuolo's workshop. Unlike the other panels in the cycle, painted on cypress wood, the Fortitude is painted on poplar, a more commonly used wood for painting on panels in Tuscany. The 1.67 x 0.87–meter painting was produced with tempera paint on a wood panel. Tempera paint consists in mixing the dry powdered colors with yolk of egg, slightly thinned with acetic acid or water, instead of mixing the colors with oil or varnish as in the case of oil painting. The colors thus mixed are usually laid on a priming of gesso, though other grounds may be used. The woman represented in Fortitude could be Lucrezia Donati.