At eye level, Giotto painted 14 frescoes of personified virtues and vices. If we face the altar, there are seven virtues on the dexterous right, seven vices on the sinister left, each in its own painted niche. The contrast between the virtues and vices and everything else in the chapel is striking. All the other frescoes are narrative; the virtues and vices are symbolic and allegoric. All the other frescoes are in radiant colour; the virtues and vices are in sombre grisaille. Of the colourful narrative frescoes, some aim to delight, some to exalt, some to overwhelm the viewer with grief. The grey frescoes of the bottom cycle have a humbler task: their job is to instruct.
If we walk towards the back wall and the Last Judgment, the virtues and vices pass by in paired opposites: (1) Prudence and Foolishness, (2) Fortitude and Inconstancy, (3) Temperance and Wrath, (4) Justice and Injustice, (5) Faith and Infidelity, (6) Charity and Envy, (7) Hope and Desperation. The last virtue, Hope, looks upward to Giotto's painted heaven; the last vice, Desperation, looks downwards into the painted fires of Hell. The practical returns of this moral lesson are clear.