Born under Julius Caesar, but too late to grow up to manhood during his Imperial reign. He flourished later under Augustus. ↩

In this passage Dante but expresses the universal veneration felt for Virgil during the Middle Ages, and especially in Italy. Petrarch’s copy of Virgil is still preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan; and at the beginning of it he has recorded in a Latin note the time of his first meeting with Laura, and the date of her death, which, he says:⁠—

“I write in this book, rather than elsewhere, because it comes often under my eye.”

“I write in this book, rather than elsewhere, because it comes often under my eye.”