Tabernacle mirror frame. Artist: Unknown (Italian, Ferrara). Culture: Italian, Florence(). Dimensions: Overall: 16 1/4 x 15 1/8. Date: 1540-60.A myriad of meanings, both positive and negative, were attached to mirrors in the Renaissance. Symbols of vanity, voluptuousness, deceit, humility, and pride, mirrors were also associated with prudence, a virtue. Venus, goddess of love, frequently looked at her own comely reflection in a looking glass. By the sixteenth century, the mirror was a codified attribute of female beauty, seen, for example, in Cesara Ripa's 1593 Iconologia with the personification of Bellezza Feminile (Feminine Beauty).Renaissance mirrors were often concealed behind curtains or shutters, which served to protect the fragile glass. This handsome example is exceptional in having not one but two sliding shutters: the mirror, behind the top shutter, is mounted in a second inner shutter that could be pulled open to one side (the shell-shaped volutes served as handles). The