Doorknocker with Prudence and Fortitude joined eternally

The cardinal virtues Prudence and Fortitude sit on a base wrapped in acanthus leaves. Both figures can be identified by their iconographic attributes: Prudence gazes at herself in a hand mirror, Fortitude holds a broken column. Their inner arms are encircled by an ouroboros symbolizing Eternity. Above the graceful maidens, two putti support a shield depicting Noah’s dove with an olive branch in its beak (Genesis 8:8–11).

This solidly cast bronze is unusually heavy at 28 pounds. The narrow iron strap attached to the shield-covered hasp functioned as a sort of cotter pin driven through the thickness of the door. A small iron wedge would have been inserted into its distal slot on the other side of the door to secure the knocker. Richard Stone proposed an earlier date for this sophisticated bronze as it uses a slot and wedge, unlike most Venetian doorknockers and andirons, which are fastened with nuts and bolts.[1]

Prudence and Fortitude were frequently paired together in Venice. See, for instance, the allegorical sculptures in the right niches of Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon’s Porta della Carta and Jacopo Tintoretto’s paintings of Prudence and Fortitude that hang on the upper right side of the apse in the church of Madonna dell’Orto. There is perhaps an etymological reason for depicting the cardinal virtues on this hinged doorknocker, for the term “cardinal” derives from the Latin cardine, meaning “hinge.” As Thomas Aquinas writes in his Summa Theologiae, “the cardinal virtues are about those things upon which human life is chiefly occupied, just as a door turns upon a hinge [cardine].”[2]

The Latin inscription in the strapwork cartouche beneath the self-devouring serpent reads HIS DVCIR, a likely abbreviation of HIS DUCIBUS, that is, “with these generals.” This might be a citation of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (24:44), which furnishes an additional Roman context of political and martial leadership on top of the cardinal virtues’ moral guidance.[3] The message would be particularly resonant in Venice, a city that embraced the ideals of romanitas.[4] Given the bronze’s themes of virtue and governance, it is possible that this sophisticated piece of statecraft was installed on the door of the palazzo of a Venetian patrician. Certainly, the sheer weight of the Thaw doorknocker suggests a well-to-do client, as bronze was by no means a cheap material. To the owner and all passersby, this pendulous bronze serves as a reminder of the moral principles that guarantee perpetual peace.
-AF

Footnotes
(For key to shortened references see bibliography in Allen, Italian Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022.)


1. R. Stone/TR, November 14, 2010.
2. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II–II, q. 123, a. 11, ad. 3.
3. Venice was in fact the site where the first influential Italian edition of Livy’s text was published by Joannes Rubeus in 1493. See Robbins 2004, p. 46.
4. P. Brown 1996, passim.