Allegory of Fertility and Abundance

Signorelli's Allegory of Fertility and Abundance from around 1500 is one of his rare secular mythological works and reflects the humanist culture of the Italian courts that commissioned classical subjects alongside religious ones. The image of abundance — figures bearing garlands of fruit, children tumbling in festive celebration — derives from ancient Roman imagery of Ceres and Bacchus as deities of agricultural bounty. Such allegories decorated the private apartments of princes who wished to signal their learning and the prosperity of their rule. Signorelli's muscular figures give even this festive subject a heroic physical energy.

The powerful, muscular figures demonstrate Signorelli's commanding draftsmanship, with the allegorical nude figures rendered with the anatomical precision that distinguished him from his contemporaries.