“About Justice departing from the shepherds: Justice illustrates a passage from Virgil's Georgics, in which he describes how Astraea, the goddess of Justice, who used to live among mortals during the Golden Age, took refuge among country people, as times degenerated, and at length fled even from them. Rosa shows the cloud-borne goddess departing from a tumbledown farmstead as she hands her sword and scales to a bemused group of peasants, one of whom awkwardly pulls of his hat in respect.” GoddessRosaVirgilSalvator RosaAstraeaGeorgics Book:Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times Source: Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times
“... He was a bad courtier and painted an ambiguous picture entitled La Menzogna or Falsehood, to show what he felt about the need for dissimulation to achieve success; a man holds up a mask to indicate to his companion that he must adopt it if he wants to make progress at court... ... The clear message was that Rosa was not prepared to demean himself in that way.” FalsehoodRosaSalvator RosaLa MenzognaRosa In FlorenceThe Break With The Cardinal Book:Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times Source: Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times