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About This Work
The scene depicts the hero Aeneas in classical military dress, holding a staff and gesturing with his right hand. He is flanked by several female figures, including Queen Dido, standing before a backdrop of Corinthian columns. The work is a pen-and-ink drawing characterized by delicate cross-hatching and the balanced, monumental composition of the High Renaissance.
In the Renaissance, Virgil's Aeneid was frequently read as a Neoplatonic allegory of the soul's moral journey. Aeneas was viewed as the 'vir perfectus' (perfect man) whose travels represented the ascent from earthly passions toward divine wisdom and civic duty, a concept central to the humanism of the Medici circle.