FIVE IS A MAGICAL NUMBER

Festina Lente is my favorite saying. It literally means 'make haste slowly'
which is kind of cryptic if we are not aware of its deeper meaning.
Let's go through this meaning together. Let's dig in. 

My Festina Lente research is getting more and more interesting. 

Not only do I wish to believe that the FIVE putti are the virtues' symbols of Cosimo I de' Medici: carefulness, patience, silence, and wisdom which are the virtues of the soul (slowness) along with strength which is the virtue of action (speed). 

Strength empowers speed while in action. The rest of the virtues provide the slowness that is necessary to take the right steps forward. 

Isn't that an amazing image? 

However, experts say that there is no written literature about this fresco's description the way we see it. Our best endorsement would have been the famous Renaissance scholar Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). Unfortunately, he doesn't mention any of what I am writing in his 'Ragionamenti' (tr. Insights).  

The tortoise symbol is everywhere in Palazzo Vecchio.
Cosimo I de' Medici's motto was Festina Lente. The
tortoise is his motto's symbol. 

Indeed at that time symbols to public messages through frescoes were accompanied by more pieces of information. That's why they were called didactic paintings. 

Therefore the number of putti could be just a fortuity. Nevertheless, the number five is not a fortuity from what we learn by studying the Medici's coat of arms. In particular Cosimo I de' Medici's family coat of arms. 

The Medici coat of arms was composed of orbs from the beginning of the family's history. In Italian, these orbs ('palle' in popular Italian, balls in English) are technically known as 'Bisanti' (metal uncoined disks whose name derives from the Byzantine coins, known as bezants.)

In the beginning, orbs were 11 red+ 1 blue, then 9 red+1 blue, 7 red+1 blue, and finally 5 red+ 1 blue as we know it nowadays. 

It was Cosimo I de' Medici who narrowed down the original 11 red orbs to 5 orbs as last. What seems to be quite a coincidence with Cosimo I's five virtues that were so dear to him. 

The Medici family coat of arms has five red orbs and one blue
orb. The blue orb equals the blue dot, the world.  What are
the five red orbs standing for? 

Unfortunately in this case as well as above there is no scientific confirmation from art historians that what we are writing is true. It's yet an interesting interpretation. I like this story. What if we were the first ones to come up with this discovery? How can we prove that we like this story so much to think of it as a true story?  

Alternatively, we could think of the orbs as the continents. We could take into consideration that the blue dot is the world and think of the Medici coat of arms as a symbol of power to extend all over the world. However, in the Renaissance period, they only admitted the existence of four continents, known as the four corners of the world. The world at that time was ruled by the number four: four seasons, four virtues, four cardinal directions, four elements. But it's prime numbers that are magical. And five is a magical number in particular because five is the number of the fingers that make one hand! 

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