COMMISSION #14 – FIAMMA MONTEZEMOLO

In a nocturnal landscape, inhabited by bare trees and lit by the full moon, stands the monumental IUNO conceived by Fiamma Montezemolo. Cloaked in a long chiton, the goddess holds a spear and a shield, her head and shoulders are covered by a goatskin that clearly identifies her as “caprotina,” as the personification of unstoppable generative power. The attributes, unaltered from the Roman sculpture conserved in the Vatican Museums from which the work draws its inspiration, illustrates the ambivalence of the figure, both creator and destroyer. However, their further elaboration and animation by the artist suggests a semantical actualisation, more specifically an interpretation in a peace-oriented key. Also defined as Sospita, or “propitious,” the armed Juno traditionally takes on the role of the warrior protector and savior of soldiers, of the deity placed in defense of life. In the image proposed here, instead, the tip of the spear, hurled toward the observer gradually takes the shape of the famous antimilitarist symbol designed by Gerald Holtom in 1958, as if to make the goddess a dispenser or, better, a warner of peace. In Montezemolo's view Juno opposes the warmongering perspective, a direct emanation of an aggressive, phallocratic, and care-hostile model. She vows her combative inclination to non-belligerence, symbolically giving up her weapon to stand for peace. A peace that is not indiscriminate but equitable, only achievable through proper standing and categorical rejection of the law of the strongest. This is testified both by the two plates of the scales placed above the goddess' eyes (a clear reference to such necessity) as well as by the shield, an attribute maintained in the new iconography which, firmly held, seems to evoke the idea of placid, but effective, resistance.

Fiamma Montezemolo, Peace Warrior, 2025, GIF