De viris illustribus

It inspired the widespread commissioning of groups of matching portraits of famous men from history (homini famosi) to serve as moral role models.

With its inception in the circle of Cicero,[1] various ancient works bear the titles De Viris Illustribus or De hominibus illustribus, including: During the Middle Ages the inspirational series took two paths: the specifically Christian models were enshrined in hagiography, in which miracles attracted the attention and the qualities exemplified by martyrs were those of fortitude, faith and obedience.

With the revival of classical learning in the Italian Renaissance, a broader, carefully selected group of men of renown from the distant and recent past, outstanding for their statecraft or their learning emerged "almost simultaneously" in the Italian cities of Milan, Naples, Siena, Padua,[4] Foligno,[5] Florence, Venice, Perugia and Urbino.

The humanist Poggio Bracciolini urged in his essay De Nobilitate Liber ("Book on Nobility"), that the Romans should be emulated "for they believed that the images of men who had excelled in the pursuit of glory and wisdom, if placed before the eyes, would help enoble and stir up the soul.

The genre continues today, not so much in universal biographical dictionaries, which verge on factual prosopography, but in collections of inspirational biographies such as Profiles in Courage.