The Works of Virgil

This page consists of parchment with text inscribed in late antique Rustic Capitals. A modern circular archival stamp from the Vatican Library is visible in the center, overlaying the ancient Latin script. The parchment shows significant aging, with some staining and irregular edges.

A rectangular miniature with a thick red border in the style of Late Antique manuscript illumination, likely from the Vergilius Vaticanus. The illustration depicts a pastoral scene from Virgil's Georgics. In the foreground, two bulls are engaged in a head-to-head struggle, their locked horns illustrating the "blind stings of love" mentioned in the text. In the background, one bull stands to the far left, while another walks away into the distance on the right, passing a stylized tree. The landscape is rendered with simple ground lines and several slender, tufted trees against a pale sky.

THE GEORGICS

BOOK III

But no other care more builds up their strength original: "uiris" (vires); referring to the physical vigor and stamina of the animals.
than to avert the lust original: "Venerem"; the goddess Venus is used here as a metonymy for sexual desire or the act of breeding. and the blind stings of love,
whether a person’s preference is for cattle or for the use of horses.
And therefore, they banish the bulls far away into lonely
pastures, behind an intervening mountain and across broad rivers,
or they keep them penned within by full mangers? original: "praesepia"; stalls or feeding troughs. This practice prevents the males from seeing females and becoming distracted or aggressive..