Statues of Virtues

These statues represent Patience, Strength, and Obedience, some of the “Fruits of the Rosary”, i.e. virtues associated with a series of prayers. Serpotta placed his statues inside niches which existed already; they were gilded in order to give more evidence to the heads of the statues. They bring to mind some early Renaissance Roman reliefs depicting niches which also were partially gilded.