3225), is a Late Antique illuminated manuscript containing fragments of Virgil's Aeneid and Georgics.

The Trojan War is an inspiration and a catalyst in a long line of epic poetry that came after Virgil.

The inclusion of crowds with buildings, people and mountains creates a striking contrast in the discovery of Carthage.

For the painter to finish this work, a set of illustrated rolls was studied and adapted which were to serve as iconographic models for the Aeneid.

These kinds of small illustrations were placed in the columns of text which was written in papyrus style on rolls.

The Vergilius Vaticanus is in very good condition, compared to other manuscripts from the same time period, which had been inefficiently prepared causing the parchment to break from oak gallnuts and ferrous sulphate.

For distinctions to be made between thick and thin strokes the scribe used a trimmed broad pen.

The human figures are painted in classical style with natural proportions and drawn with vivacity.

The gray ground of the landscapes blend into bands of rose, violet, or blue to give the impression of a hazy distance.

Each miniature had a proportional figure with a landscape creating a hazy effect, featuring classical architecture and clothing.

[1] Popular myths such as Hylas and the Nymphs were represented by the nine surviving illustrations of the Georgics through a command of pastoral and genre scenes by competent artists.

[1] Without decorated frames and painted backgrounds or landscape settings, the illustrated verses used only the essentials for telling a story using minimal figures and objects.

The artist sacrificed style for pictorial accuracy in order to capture the city in its urgent progress and unity.

Aeneas’s awkwardly composed anatomy is created with the artist’s smooth and thick brushstrokes.

Aeneas’s body, in contrast to Achates, implies speech based on the extended stance.

[4] Preparing 220 sheets of parchment paper measured from 25 by 43 centimeters (10 by 17 in) was the first step in the bookmaking process.

[1] The first record of the almost complete manuscript showed up at the monastery of Saint-Martin in Tours during the second quarter of the ninth century.

In around 1514, the manuscript, after it disappeared and suffered more dismemberment, showed up in Rome in the circle of Raphael where several of the surviving illustrations were copied and adapted for other purpose.

Shortly after 1642, the manuscript was altered due to rebinding the codex and added patches on the parchment.

Digital Facsimile: Vatican Library All the illustrations are online, with commentary, in Wright, David H., The Vatican Vergil, a Masterpiece of Late Antique Art, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993, google books, full online text