Secondary sourcePainting1566
Portrait of Publius Vergilius Maro, 1566 print
1566
A sixteenth-century engraved bust portrait of Virgil, crowned with laurel and captioned as a famous poet of the age of Augustus. It is an imagined likeness made long after his death.
It is an imagined portrait of Virgil that connects him to the emperor Augustus, showing how sixteenth-century readers remembered the poet.
About this source
What it is
This is an engraved bust-format portrait dated 1566, held by the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands. It shows a bearded man in profile with a long nose, wearing a laurel wreath and a hood or cloth over his head. A caption plaque below carries a Latin inscription that describes Virgil as a famous poet of the time of Augustus.
Why it matters
Virgil lived in the first century BCE, and this print was made about 1600 years later. Its caption links him to Augustus, the emperor whose reign Virgil's work was often connected with. Images like this one helped sixteenth-century readers picture the classical authors they were studying and collecting.
Look closer
- What details of the wreath, hood and profile did the engraver use to make Virgil look like a poet?
- What does the Latin caption say about when Virgil lived, and why might that matter to the people who bought the print?
- What can this portrait not tell us about the real Virgil?
This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Virgil on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.
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