Fortuna is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular through the Middle Ages until at least the Renaissance.
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12 Facts About Fortuna
2.
Fortuna's might bring good or bad luck: she could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Lady Justice, except that Fortuna does not hold a balance.
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3.
Fortuna's father was said to be Jupiter and like him, she could be bountiful .
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4.
The first temple dedicated to Fortuna was attributed to the Etruscan Servius Tullius, while the second is known to have been built in 293 BC as the fulfilment of a Roman promise made during later Etruscan wars.
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5.
Fortuna is found in a variety of domestic and personal contexts.
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6.
Fortuna's is functionally related to the god Bonus Eventus, who is often represented as her counterpart: both appear on amulets and intaglio engraved gems across the Roman world.
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8.
Fortuna did not disappear from the popular imagination with the ascendancy of Christianity.
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9.
Fortuna, then, was a servant of God, and events, individual decisions, the influence of the stars were all merely vehicles of Divine Will.
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10.
Fortuna's was associated with the cornucopia, ship's rudder, the ball and the wheel.
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11.
The Christianized Lady Fortune is not autonomous: illustrations for Boccaccio's Remedii show Fortuna enthroned in a triumphal car with reins that lead to heaven.
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12.
Fortuna appears in chapter 25 of Machiavelli's The Prince, in which he says Fortune only rules one half of men's fate, the other half being of their own will.
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