Sebastian Brandt, the Master of the Gruninger Workshop and Virgil’s “Opera”
Virgil (70-19 BC) is considered one of the greatest poets of ancient Rome. Arguably his best-known work is the “Aeneid,” the epic account of Aeneas’ search for a new homeland, which follows a similar pattern to Homer’s epic poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey.” At the time of Virgil’s death, however, the “Aeneid” remained unfinished.
Despite being an unfinished work, “Aeneid” is among one of the most important poems in the history of Western literature and is widely regarded as the poet’s greatest work. It is said that when Virgil recited extracts from the work before the emperor Augustus, the impact was such that it caused the failure of the emperor’s sister, Octavia.
“Aeneid” consists of 12 books that describe the journey of Aeneas, the mythical ancestor of Romulus and Remus (founders of the city of Rome), as he flees to Italy from Troy, fights with the local prince Turnus and founds a city on which Rome would be built. The work is said to have been commissioned by Augustus and may have modeled the work of Homer, with the “Odyssey” being stylistically similar to the first 6 books of the “Aeneid” and the “Iliad” bearing the same relationship to the last 6 books. of Virgil. great job. Throughout history, Virgil recounts mythical events including: Aeneas’ escape from Troy and Juno’s attempts to interfere with Aeneas’ destiny by driving his fleet ashore in Africa; the favor granted to Aeneas by Dido, the queen of Carthage; the story of the Greek betrayal at Troy involving a gigantic wooden horse, the death of Laocoön, the escape of Aeneas and members of his family from him, and the journey of his fleet until they landed at Carthage; Aeneas’ abandonment of Dido and his subsequent suicide; the death of Anchises (father of Aeneas); Aeneas’ journey to the underworld; the Trojan settlement in Lazio; and the epic waged between Aeneas and Turnus.
Virgil’s “Eclogues” (also known as the “Bucolics”) is a collection of 10 poems on rustic themes in the style of the Greek poet Theocritus. Following the publication of these works, they became popular performance pieces on the Roman stage. With a combination of political commentary and eroticism, they contributed to Virgil’s fame. Eclogues 1 and 9 deal with issues related to the frequent land confiscations that occurred in the Empire and the consequent effects on the countryside. Eclogues 2 and 3 are heavily based on the agricultural setting and deal with homosexual and panerotic themes. Eclogue 4, known as the ‘Messianic Eclogue’, links the birth of a child with the announcement of a Golden Age. Eclogues 5 and 8 deal with the myth of Daphnis -the mythical shepherd, flutist and inventor of pastoral poetry- in a singing contest. Eclogue 6 describes the mythological song of Silenus, the companion and tutor of Dionysus. Eclogue 7 deals with a heated contest between poets. Eclogue 10 describes the life of one of Virgil’s contemporaries, the poet Cornelius Gallus, a man believed to have been instrumental in the repatriation of land confiscated from Virgil earlier.
The “Georgics” include four books dealing with agricultural matters; the title “Geórgicas” is derived from the Greek term for ‘to work the land’. The Books deal respectively with crop farming (Book 1), tree farming (Book 2), cattle and horse breeding (Book 3), and beekeeping (Book 4). Tradition holds that Maecenas convinced Virgil to spend time with the “Georgics”, a political adviser and confidant of Octavian (later emperor Augustus).
Besides the “Eclogues”, the “Georgics” and the “Aeneid”, a collection of small poetic works survived until the Renaissance. So, too, there were numerous surviving examples of attempts to finish the “Aeneid,” including Maffeo Vegio’s of 1428. It was that collection of works that came to the attention of Sebastian Brandt (1457-1521), the German Renaissance humanist and Satirical: early 16th century, when he was commissioned by Johannes Gruninger to edit the complete works of Virgil for the first illustrated edition.
Brandt had studied in Basel and became a doctor of law in 1489. In the intellectual maelstrom of the Renaissance, Brandt was drawn to humanistic circles and gained a measure of popularity with his Latin poetry. His literary endeavors continued apace and in 1494 his “Das Narrenschiff” (“The Ship of Fools”) was published, a work which received wide popular acclaim and has been identified as an important precursor to the Protestant Reformation.
It was from the workshops associated with the Gruninger printing works that the artwork for the 1502 Edition was prepared and it was that reference that leaves us with the title “Late Master of the Gruninger Workshops” for the artist responsible. The honorific, “Master”, indicating the importance of the illustrations accompanying the 1502 Edition of “Opera”. The suite is a positive tour de force, incorporating many full-page and two-page illustrations, plus woodcuts integrated into the text. In all, with over 210 woodcuts included in the suite, it deserves to be a significant work, but it is also Virgil’s utterly sympathetic depiction of the text that marks the suite as a masterpiece.