The Arithmetic

Arithmetic is personified in this 1492 fresco in the Borgia Apartments of the Vatican, part of Pinturicchio"s decorative program for Pope Alexander VI. The Liberal Arts series—Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music—decorated the vault and walls of the Room of the Liberal Arts, creating an appropriate intellectual environment for the pope"s private quarters. Pinturicchio — Bernardino di Betto — was the master of decorative fresco in late fifteenth-century Rome, executing major commissions for Pope Innocent VIII in the Belvedere, Pope Alexander VI in the Borgia Apartments, and Pope Pius III in the Piccolomini Library in Siena.

The allegorical figure is integrated into the architectural framework of the room, with Pinturicchio"s decorative instincts fully deployed in the ornamental borders, grotesques, and symbolic attributes that surround the central personification. The fresco technique shows confident, rapid execution appropriate to the large decorative program. The palette is brilliant, with the vivid blues, golds, and reds that make the Borgia Apartments one of the most colorful interiors of the Italian Renaissance.