Monday, July 7, 2008

The Aeneid in Renaissance Art


Lest you assume that the only people who cared about Vergil's epic poem were the Romans (and we pesky Classics scholars)...

The Renaissance, that flourishing of literature and the arts in 16th-century Italy (OK, OK, Europe generally. But it started in Italy.), drew immensely upon classical themes, literature and culture for its subject material. Boticelli's Birth of Venus; Raphael's School of Athens; and, more relevant to our curriculum in the coming year, the image posted above, Federico Barocci's Aeneas' Flight from Troy, ca. 1598. Can you identify the lines from the Aeneid which the painting depicts, and all of the persons in the scene?

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