The Vatican Vergil: A Masterpiece of Late Antique Art

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Description

Made in Rome around A.D. 400, the Vatican Vergil is the most famous and the most attractive illustrated book surviving from classical antiquity. David H. Wright introduces this masterpiece of late antique art and shows why it’s such an impressive example of the new type of book, the codex, that replaced the traditional papyrus roll and permitted more elaborate illustrations. Here are thirty-two of the most interesting illustrations from the Vatican Vergil, reprinted in full color from the 1980 facsimile published in Graz, Austria, in collaboration with the Vatican Library. Facing every reproduction is the appropriate text from Vergil, in Latin and in English, in conjunction with explanatory comments.

Wright discusses how the manuscript used to be made, describing the style of the capital script and of the illustrations in addition to their sources in older classical traditions. He examines the Vatican Vergil for instance of the revival of classical culture in pagan circles in Rome at a time when Christian authority used to be systematically suppressing pagan religion. In the end, he surveys the “afterlife” of the codex, tracing how the work used to be studied and copied first in the Carolingian era and then in the Italian Renaissance. The entire illustrations not reproduced in color are given at full size in black and white in a concluding list of the illustrations that have survived on this unique masterpiece.

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