Virgil's Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid, Edinburgh manuscript

What it is

This is a manuscript page containing Virgil's three major poems: the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid. The University of Edinburgh holds it under the call number MS195. The catalogue lists John Colville as the creator. The page has a painted miniature in an arched frame showing a plough team of oxen, a farmer, figures tending vines and trees, and two figures in clouds above. Latin text runs below in two columns, with decorated borders of flowers, a bird and small figures.

Why it matters

Manuscripts like this one carried Virgil's poems across the centuries before printing made books common. The painted farm scene matches the rural subject of the Georgics, showing how readers and makers connected the poem to images of work on the land. The record does not give a date, so the page should be read as a later copy of Virgil's text rather than something Virgil made.

Look closer

• How does the painted scene relate to the words written below it?
• Who might have owned or used a book like this, and why would it be decorated?
• What does the catalogue not tell us about when this page was made and who worked on it?