Prudence — from The Seven Virtues

This engraving shows a seated woman viewed from behind, her head turned to display two distinct faces looking in opposite directions. She holds a circular mirror in her right hand and a snake coiling around her left hand. The figure is set against a backdrop of crumbling masonry and a distant landscape, reflecting the classic Mannerist style of the period.

Prudence, in the classical tradition, is often depicted with a mirror (to examine the self) and a serpent (to signify the biblical mandate to be 'wise as serpents'). The two-faced iconography draws directly from the Roman god Janus, representing the ability to discern the past and future, a virtue central to Stoic and Neoplatonic ethics during the Renaissance.