vertu
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /vəˈtuː/
ipa: /vɚˈtu/
rhymes: -uː
Forms: form: vertù
form: virtu
Etymology: Borrowed from Italian virtù, †vertù (“moral worth, virtue (13th century); determination, perseverance, military valour (14th century); study of the liberal or fine arts; appreciation of, taste for, or expertise in the fine arts; objets d'art collectively (16th century)”); or from French vertu (“virtue”), ultimately from Latin virtūt-, virtus (“virtue”). Doublet of virtue; compare also virtuoso.
Senses: examples: text: To give them their Due, they ſoar a Step higher than their Predeceſſors, and may be called Men of Wiſdom and Vertù (take heed you do not read Virtue).
ref: 1750, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, volume III, London: Printed for A[ndrew] Millar, →OCLC, pages 238–239:
text: He engaged a certain Abbé of distinguished taste in virtù to attend them as their Ciceroné, and explain the antiquities brought from Herculaneum and Pompeia […].
ref: 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 233:
topics: art
arts
glosses: The fine arts as a subject of study or expertise; understanding of arts and antiquities.
examples: text: A Catalogue of a Truly Valuable Assemblage of Articles of Virtu of William Chinnery, Esq. Brought from Gillwell, Essex[…].
ref: 1812, William Chinnery, A Catalogue of a Truly Valuable Assemblage of Articles of Virtu of William Chinnery …, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, title page:
text: Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as an object of vertù.
ref: 1851, Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick or The White Whale”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Boston: The St. Botolph Society, published 1922, →OCLC, page 423:
text: The more drawers and closets there were, the more hiding-holes could Charlotte make for the accommodation of old rags, hair-combs, old shoes, ribbons, cast-off artificial flowers, and other articles of vertù, wherein her soul delighted.
ref: 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, London: John Cassell, →OCLC, page 178:
topics: art
arts
glosses: Objets d'art collectively.
examples: text: All these connotations, even the positive and moral ones, are within the range of significations Machiavelli wants us to hear in “virtù.” For him the word suggests a kind of flexibility that can initiate effective, efficient, and energetic action based on a courageous assertion of the will and an ability to execute the products of one's own calculations. Such calculations are a significant adjunct to his ideas about virtù: they outline what might be called an internal or mental virtù.
ref: 1976, Niccolò Machiavelli; James B. Atkinson, transl., The Prince [The Library of Liberal Arts; LLA-172], Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Company, ISBN 978-0-672-51542-2; reprinted as Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008, ISBN 978-0-87220-920-6, pages 69–70
text: He alternately shocks his readers and provides relief from the very shocks he administers: Agathocles has virtù but cannot be said to have virtù. It is not enough to say that he uses the word in several “senses”; he uses it in two contradictory senses as to whether it includes or excludes evil deeds.
ref: 1996, Harvey C[laflin] Mansfield[, Jr.], Machiavelli's Virtue, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, pages 6–7:
text: To oversimplify, Machiavelli uses virtù to refer both to “Christian” moral virtues, the conventional universalistic values embodied in the Golden Rule, and to a set of more particularistic classical virtues centered on honor. Together they comprise Machiavelli's account of the most noble and distinctive human excellences, achievements, and aspirations.
ref: 2000, Jack Donnelly, Realism and International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 175:
glosses: Especially with reference to the writings of Machiavelli (1469–1527): the requisite qualities for political or military success; vitality, determination; power.
glosses: Moral worth; virtue, virtuousness.
Related terms: objet de vertu