The liberal arts - Allegory of Arithmetic

The frescoes are part of a cycle consisting of six medallions and another mutilated fragment, depicting the seven Liberal Arts, according to the iconography established in the 5th century AD by the African grammarian Marziano Capella in De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy and Music.

The frescoes, together with two other fragments, were originally part of the facade of Palazzo Cattanei, in via Carducci, from which they were detached in 1886. The subjects depicted, The justice of Trajan and The continence of Scipio, are in relationship with the coats of arms of the representatives of the Venetian Republic. The deeds of the Roman ancestors, in the reintroduction of classical sources which was usual in the first half of the 16th century, are the metaphor of the Venetian victory, of clemency towards the defeated and of the good government of the Republic, just out of the war trials and destruction caused by the war against the troops of the League of Cambrai. Attributed to Girolamo Mocetto, the pieces constitute the only narrative evidence in the catalogue of the Venetian painter.