PALLADE E IL CENTAURO

pallade e il centauro

Commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent, perhaps on the occasion of the wedding of his cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici with Semiramide Appiani, the work was kept in Palazzo Medici (now Medici-Riccadi) near the Spring. The painting depicts the goddess Pallas, that Minerva, armed with a heavy halberd and dressed with embroidered transparent fabrics. With the right hand holds by the hair a centaur. According to a philosophical reading, the scene is supposed to represent the contrast between reason and instinct, or between humility and pride or between chastity and lust. According to a political interpretation rather the goddess represents the centaur Firenze and Roma. The background would instead represents the Gulf of Naples. In fact the Magnificent was at that time pledged to negotiate a peace with the Kingdom of Naples to avert its alliance with the Pope Sixtus IV.