Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen (Bern)

[2] Thanks to its namesake figure, Hans Gieng's famous statue of Lady Justice, the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen surpasses all other Bernese fountains in artistic merit.

The main basin, made out of unadorned limestone plates held together with an iron ring, bears the date of one of the renovations, MDCCCXLV.

Her costume is fashioned in an antique manner,[7] with sandaled feet, one knee bared, wearing a decorative golden suit of armour adorned with bas-relief arabesques over her blue robes.

At the feet of Justice, four smaller busts crowd the pedestal: a Pope, an Emperor, a Sultan and a Schultheiss, whose golden chain of office is believed to have originally borne the Bernese arms.

They represent the Four Earthly Powers, the four forms of government according to Renaissance humanism: theocracy (the Pope), monarchy (the Emperor), autocracy (the Sultan) and the republic (the Schultheiss).

[8] The ensemble represents the supremacy of Justice over all Earthly authorities;[9] a variant of the medieval pictorial formula of virtue defeating vice.

[12] While the sword and scales are traditional attributes of Iustitia, the Bernese statue's blindfold is a novelty;[11][13] only later did it become a common element in personifications of Justice and a general symbol for the principle of equality before the law.

[14] Direct copies exist in Solothurn (1561), Lausanne (1585), Boudry, Cudrefin and Neuchâtel; designs influenced by the Bernese statue are found in Aarau (1643), Biel, Burgdorf, Brugg, Zürich and Luzern.