Vergilius Publius Maro: Aeneid, Bucolicon, Georgicon, Appendix

The three primary works of the great ancient poet Virgil – namely the Bucolics, Georgics, and the Aeneid – are counted among the most important documents in the history of world literature. The masterful tales revolutionized Latin poetry and shortly after Virgil’s death were already repeatedly transcribed, published, commented on, and reworked. This fine specimen from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France originated from the workshop of Guglielmo Giraldi (ca. 1423 – after 1469) and Giorgio d'Alemagna (ca. 1410/20-1479) in Ferrara between 1458 and 1459 and is adorned with masterful miniatures, initials, and floral borders in the style of the Quattrocento. The work was originally commissioned by Leonardo Sanuto, a Venetian patrician residing in Ferrara at that time.

Classical Latin Bestsellers

The three great works of Virgil are known by the titles Bucolics – the title translates to ‘pastoral poem’ – combining ten eclogues, the Georgics – a didactic poem consisting of four books concerning agriculture and animal husbandry, and the Aeneid epic that is divided into twelve books. The poetic writings were already unified into a Corpus in antiquity. In late antiquity, it was continuously annotated, primarily for use in schools, and was furnished with a comprehensive Vita, primers, and other complementary texts from the most varied of origins. Simultaneously, extremely luxurious editions of the work came to be, in which Virgil’s text was commented on with illustrative pictures.

The Appendix Vergiliana

Juvenilia are works produced by an author during their youth, which, if published at all, usually appears as a retrospective publication after the author has become well known for later works. Virgil’s juvenilia are referred to as the Appendix Vergiliana and consist of a collection of poems that, in its present form, was assembled in Late Antiquity. Although considered to be Virgil’s works during antiquity, modern scholars have deduced that only a couple are actual works by Virgil while the rest are by other authors of the 1st century. Some of the poems may have been attempts by other authors to pass works off under Virgil's name as pseudepigrapha while others may have been mistakenly included in the collection at a later time. Nonetheless, they are fascinating works from the Golden Age of Latin Literature that continue to be studied and debated by scholars to this day.

Antiquity Meets the Renaissance

Thanks to the patronage of the wealthy and sophisticated House of Este, Ferrara grew into a center of manuscript production – humanistic works and transcriptions of rediscovered manuscripts from antiquity in particular. Aside from illustrating the events, the miniatures created by Guglielmo Giraldi and Giorgio d'Alemagna include scenes medieval farmers’ labors and daily life, people in contemporary clothing, but also depictions of soldiers wearing classically styled armor that had also come back into vogue during the 15th century. Some of these miniatures are part of elaborate historiated initials with letters made from dragons, lions, and fish. The figures have the soft, fairytale like quality of the International Gothic style but already possess the naturalism of Renaissance art. A delicate color palette dominated by pinks, blues, greens, and plenty of gold leaf rounds out the presentation of this extraordinarily fine manuscripts.