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The Vergilius Romanus (Vatican City
Vatican City

Vatican City , officially the State of the Vatican City , is a Landlocked country sovereignty city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the Capital of Italy....
, Biblioteca Apostolica, Cod. Vat. lat. 3867), also known as the Roman Vergil, is a 5th century illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the Writing is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and Miniature ....
 of the works of Virgil
Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
. It contains the Aeneid
Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
, the Georgics
Georgics

The Georgics, published in 29 BCE, is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil. Its ostensible subject is rural life and farming. It is generally described as Didacticism....
, and some of the Eclogues. It is one of the oldest and most important Vergilian manuscript
Manuscript

A manuscript is any document that is written by hand, as opposed to being printed or reproduced in some other way. The term may also be used for information that is hand-recorded in other ways than writing, for example inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard material or scratched as with a knife point in plaster or with a stylus on a wa...
s.






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The Vergilius Romanus (Vatican City
Vatican City

Vatican City , officially the State of the Vatican City , is a Landlocked country sovereignty city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the Capital of Italy....
, Biblioteca Apostolica, Cod. Vat. lat. 3867), also known as the Roman Vergil, is a 5th century illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the Writing is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and Miniature ....
 of the works of Virgil
Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
. It contains the Aeneid
Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
, the Georgics
Georgics

The Georgics, published in 29 BCE, is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil. Its ostensible subject is rural life and farming. It is generally described as Didacticism....
, and some of the Eclogues. It is one of the oldest and most important Vergilian manuscript
Manuscript

A manuscript is any document that is written by hand, as opposed to being printed or reproduced in some other way. The term may also be used for information that is hand-recorded in other ways than writing, for example inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard material or scratched as with a knife point in plaster or with a stylus on a wa...
s. It is 332 by 323 mm with 309 vellum
Vellum

Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on single pages, scrolls, Codex or books. It is generally thin, smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin, and the type of animal....
 folios. It was written in a rustic capitals
Rustic capitals

Rustic capitals is an Ancient Rome calligraphy script. As the term is negatively connotated supposing an opposition to the more 'civilized' form of the Roman square capitals Bernhard Bischoff prefers to call the script canonized capitals....
 with 18 lines per page.

Decoration


The Vergilius Romanus is one of the few surviving illustrated classical manuscripts. As such, its importance to art history cannot be overstated. The manuscript has 19 surviving illustrations, painted by at least two artists, both of whom are anonymous. The style of both artists represents the beginning of a break with classical style. The human form becomes abstracted and flattened and the naturalistic depiction of space is abandoned.

The first artist painted a single miniature on folio 1 recto, an illustration for the First Eclogue. In it a cowherd, Tityrus, plays a flute while sitting under a tree. The heads of three cows look out from behind the tree. Meanwhile a standing goatherd, Meliboeus, leads a goat by its horns under a tree. More goats look out from behind that tree. This miniature shows some remnants of classical style. The cows and goats looking out from behind the trees are an attempt, albeit an unsuccessful one, at creating the appearance of space. The garments of the two men are draped naturally and the heads are shown in three quarter view. The miniature, unlike any miniature in this manuscript, is unframed which shows a connection to the tradition of papyrus roll illustration.

The second artist demonstrates a more radical break from the classical tradition in the remaining miniatures. All of these miniatures are framed in red and gold. The artist seems to have no real understanding of the portrayal of the human body, and is incapable of handling a contorted pose, such as is seen on folio 100 verso, where a reclining figure is portrayed in an utterly unconvincing manner. Faces are no longer portrayed in three quarter position but are either frontal or full profile. The clothing no longer drapes naturally but is instead reduced to rhythmic curving lines. The page is often divided into separate compartments (See, for example, Folio 108r). When a landscape is depicted there is no attempt to depict a three dimensional space. There is no ground line and items are spread evenly over the field. Care is taken so that items do not overlap each other. The effect is remarkably similar to some Roman floor mosaic
Mosaic

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other material. It may be a technique of Decorative arts, an aspect of interior decoration or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral....
s, which may have served as inspiration (see folios 44 verso and 45 recto. The second artist was a fine artist. However, his interests were in patterns and lines rather than in the naturalistic portrayal of space and the human form.

The manuscript contains three author portraits (Folios 3v, 9r, and 14 r). These portraits show a reliance on the early papyrus scroll tradition of manuscript portraits. They are inserted into the text column within a frame. The portraits show Vergil sitting on a chair between a lectern and a locked chest. The portrait on folio 3v has the lectern on Vergil's right on the chest on his left, which is reversed in the other two portraits.

Provenance


The Vergilius Romanus was produced in an undetermined province. Based on the style of some aspects of the illumination it has been suggested that it was produced in Britain
Sub-Roman Britain

Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeologists' label for the material culture of Great Britain in Late Antiquity. "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the pottery sherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a higher standard under the Roman Empire....
. If this is true it would make it the oldest surviving British codex. It was at the Abbey of St. Denis
Saint Denis Basilica

The Basilica of Saint Denis is the List of cemeteries of almost all the List of French monarchs since Clovis I . Saved and restored by the architect Viollet le Duc, the basilica is located in Saint-Denis, now a northern suburb of Paris....
 until the 15th Century. It is not known how it came to be at St. Denis or in the Vatican.

The Vergilius Romanus is not to be confused with the Vergilius Vaticanus
Vergilius Vaticanus

The Vergilius Vaticanus is an illuminated manuscript containing fragments of Virgil's Aeneid and Georgics made in Rome in about 400. It is one of the oldest surviving sources for the text of the Aeneid and is the oldest and one of only three illustrated manuscript of classical literature....
 (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica, Cod. Vat. lat. 3225) or the Vergilius Augusteus, other ancient Vergilian manuscripts in the Biblioteca Apostolica.

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