Minerva

The Roman goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, strategic warfare, commerce, weaving, and the crafts.  


The stories surrounding Minerva, and her Greek version Athena, are legion.   Jupiter has a splitting headache - to name but one legend.   Vulcan eventually did a craniotomy and out jumped Minerval.  Some said that Jupiter had swallowed her mother whole after he had impregnated her.  Others said that Minerva was not conceived by intercourse, but from a thought about the Logo, the Word, in Jupiter's mind.


As a patron of wisdom, Minerva frequently features in statuary, as an image on seals, and on many colleges and educational institutions.   As she does  on the dome of my alma mater - Dumfries Academy.