De luxe Early Virgil Manuscripts
Virgil Reading the "Aeneid" to Augustus, Octavia, and Livia. Oil on canvas.
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Special Collections at the University of Arizona houses two exceptional manuscript facsimiles of the works of Virgil, the ancient Roman poet who wrote the Bucolics, Georgics and Aeneid: the Vatican Virgil (Vat. lat. 3225), the oldest and one of the most glorious extant examples of an illustrated book of classical literature, and the Augustan Virgil (Vat. lat. 3256), of which only seven leaves survive.
One other de luxe Virgil manuscript was also produced within decades of these two: the Roman Virgil (Vat. lat. 3867), which was designed on a grand scale for display. In discussing the “Golden Boughs” Professor White shares the early and lavish production of these three Virgil manuscripts as testimony to the classic universality of his poetry.