Iconology of Justice. Rhetoric and Law in The Calumny by Sandro Botticelli

This contribution proposes a rhetorical reading of The Calumny by Sandro Botticelli, a tempera painting on panel executed between 1494 and 1497 and preserved in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Recovering the classical interpretation of trial in Renaissance cul- ture, Botticelli defines the legal value of Justice through the figure of antithesis, depict- ing the form of an unfair trial and the oblivion of truth in judgment. Botticelli employs an ekphrastic technique, typical of Greek culture, and reinterprets mythology using a modern language. The explanation follows three methodological levels of inquiry into the work: 1) an analysis of the origin of painting in the literary genre of rhetorical ékphrasis in Greek cul- ture and during the Renaissance; 2) an iconographic description of an unfair trial, repre- sented by The Calumny, through the exegesis of the meaning of rhetorical forms, histori- cal context, and allegorical figures; 3) an iconological interpretation of the painting (in the sense of Erwin Panofsky) as a paradigm of the idea of classical in the modern age, achieved through the identification of eight dialectical oppositions in the figurative rep- resentation. In conclusion, the study leads to three meanings (historical, cultural, and theoretical) that can be derived from the work by Botticelli on the concept of the classical. In this way, the value of the classical is explained through the relationship between truth and trial.