Let's speak about Justice!!!

What's Justice in your opinion? Why is it very important for society? 

           You can first read the article, and then let's "tricider".

 

Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Fresco

To better understand what utopia is we have analysed Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco called “the good government”. As in th. More’s Utopia, the fresco compares a bad government to what should be a good government. The utopia, therefore, represents an ideal model to follow and contains a warning  to be always present to the government of Siena and to its citizens.

The allegory of the good government is situated in the Public Palace in Siena, into the “room of Nine”, a public room open to everyone. So the fresco wants to be an invitation to reflect on what governing does for the common welfare.

Famous for its strong allegoric component and its complex symbolism, it celebrates the importance of a Good Government based on the principle of social Justice.

The fresco compares the good government on the left to the bad government on the right.

 

Starting from the right there is a character who has a scepter and a shield on one hand and he wears white and black clothes. He represents the Government which is reported at the state of judge. On the right wrist is linked the rope of the justice and he is protected and ispirated by the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. On his side the four cardinal virtues are sitting: Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortress.

Prudence is represented with salt on her fingers, Justice has a mutilated head on her lap, Temperance has a sand-clock , and Fortress a shield.

Considering the fresco as a whole, we can split it up into three horizontal bands. The lower one represents  the life and the participation of people, the central one the government of the city which needs the help of all the virtues, the highest one means that the human virtues may not be enough if they aren’t vivified by the ones that refers to God, that are the three theological virtues and the Wisdom.

But we think the most important part of the fresco is the part on the left. In fact, we can see the image of a woman holding a scale with two dishes in balance. It is the image of Justice, which suggests the need to “give to each one his own” , without any discount. Above the dishes there are two writings which indicate the partition of justice according to the aristotelian tradition. Looking at the dish on the right we notice the scene of the commutative justice, which involves equity of exchanges. Then, in the dish on the left we can see the scene of the distributive justice, which consists on rewarding the good people and on  punishing the wicked. Above the Justice there is a winged female figure who is holding a book entitled “Sapentia”. Two ropes are hanging down from the dishes of the scale.

A sitting woman is holding them. She’s the symbol of the “Concord”, she’s the direct consequence of the Justice into the citizens' community.  She is carrying a plane on her lap, symbol of the equality which eliminates all the social contrast.

 

In our opinion the rope could be the Aidos that Zeus gave to Humanity to contrast its hybris.

If the hybris means the human prometeic pride breaking divine limits, Aidos is the humility men have to have to limit their pride. As we can see, the rope Lorenzetti painted, holds the people together inside a limit (the limit of the Dike) people can’t transgress, and in this space the peace reigns in contraposition to the bad government.

 

We students have written this text because it could inspire our “Utopia”  and it could help us to understand which are the evils that afflict our society.

Moreover, into it we can note very well the “particular instruments” that policy needs to be defined “the good technique” that we had seen previously in Prometeo’s  myth: Dike and Aidos, in fact, are at the centre of the allegory. Dike is the protagonist of the left side, Aidos which meanders like a rope through the painting remembering that every person has some limits to respect to live in “cumcordia”.   

  ->   Tricider: "What's justice?"  

          (review October 2015: unfortunately, our discussion on "tricider" is no longer available)    

 

After Tricider, you can simply transcribe the words that come to your mind when you think "What's Justice" and write it on AnswerGarden. The most "written" will grow up! :-)