Name/Title
CE 1502 Virgil, Georgica: Pastoral Scene With AnimalsDescription
Virgil (70–19 BCE)
Johann Grüninger, printer
From Opera Virgilii
Strasbourg: Johann Grüninger, 1502
Woodcut on paper
This woodcut was produced for Johann Grüninger’s illustrated 1502 Strasbourg edition of the works of the Roman poet Virgil. It accompanies the Georgics, Virgil’s didactic poem concerning agriculture, animal husbandry, rural labor, and the relationship between human cultivation and the natural world.
The composition brings numerous animals into a densely organized landscape, including deer, horses, cattle, goats, dogs, and birds. Human figures and architectural elements are incorporated into the same setting. Rather than functioning simply as a naturalistic depiction of a single moment, the image combines multiple motifs associated with Virgil’s text into a visual summary of pastoral and agricultural life.
Grüninger’s edition is representative of an important development in early printed books: the extensive use of woodcut illustration to interpret classical texts for contemporary readers. Because relief woodcuts could be printed together with movable type, they were particularly well suited to illustrated books. Grüninger’s Virgil employed a large cycle of such images, translating passages and themes from the ancient poems into visual narratives recognizable to an early sixteenth-century audience.
The distinctly northern European landscape, buildings, clothing, and animals also demonstrate how Renaissance printers visualized antiquity through their own material environment. The image therefore represents both Virgil’s ancient pastoral world and an early sixteenth-century European interpretation of that world.Create Date
August 22, 2026Update Date
September 6, 2026
