Justice: The Seven Cardinal Virtues

The personified virtue stands elegantly in a curved niche, gripping a sword and a balance while looking toward the viewer. Small shields in the upper corners display the Tablets of the Law and a crossed palm and sword, symbolizing the source and victory of justice. The Latin verse at the base appeals for the return of the goddess Astraea to a world filled with fraud and malice.

The identification of Justice with Astraea connects this work to the Neoplatonic ideal of the 'renovatio,' or the restoration of a lost Golden Age of divine order on earth. This motif was central to late 16th-century humanist thought and the political-philosophical imagery found in the circles of the Haarlem Mannerists and the court of Rudolf II.