SIGNORELLI, Luca
(b. ca. 1450, Cortona, d. 1523, Cortona)

Head of a Poet Wearing a Cap

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Black pencil, 237 x 155 mm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

This drawing depicts a poet wearing a cap and crowned with a laurel wreath. This impressive portrait is very likely the one of Virgil. The flat beretto of the type worn by scholars was a standard attribute in portraits of Virgil. Virgil's portrait in the compartment behind the Baroque altar in the Chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto has now been lost.