Concept

De viris illustribus

Overview

De Viris Illustribus, meaning "concerning illustrious men", represents a genre of literature which evolved during the Italian Renaissance in imitation of the exemplary literature of Ancient Rome. It inspired the widespread commissioning of groups of matching portraits of famous men from history (homini famosi) to serve as moral role models.

With its inception in the circle of Cicero, various ancient works bear the titles De Viris Illustribus or De hominibus illustribus, including:

Cornelius Nepos' De Viris Illustribus, from which Aulus Gellius draws an anecdote of Cato the Elder; Cornelius Nepos also produced a Liber De Excellentibus Ducibus Gentium (Lives of Eminent Commanders).

Suetonius' fragmentary Lives include grammarians, rhetoricians, historians, and poets.

An anonymous De Viris Illustribus probably dating to the first half of the 4th century is a compilation of 86 brief biographies of individuals important to Roman history, from the legendary Alban king Proca to Cleopatra. This work was initially attributed to Aurelius Victor, under the name De Viris Illustribus Romae.

Jerome's collection of Christian biographies, De Viris Illustribus, contains 135 brief notices.

Gennadius of Massilia's De Viris Illustribus, who continued Jerome's work.

Isidore of Seville's De Viris Illustribus.

During the Middle Ages the inspirational series took two paths: the specifically Christian models were enshrined in hagiography, in which miracles attracted the attention and the qualities exemplified by martyrs were those of fortitude, faith and obedience. On the secular side, the worldly models were codified in the Nine Worthies, chivalric exemplars of valiant courtoisie, the instructive models of aristocratic courtly behavior. The literary biographies were reflected in illustrated versions in illuminated manuscripts, tapestry and other media.

With the revival of classical learning in the Italian Renaissance, a broader, carefully selected group of men of renown from the distant and recent past, outstanding for their statecraft or their learning emerged "almost simultaneously" in the Italian cities of Milan, Naples, Siena, Padua, Foligno, Florence, Venice, Perugia and Urbino. In literature the theme was revived by Giovanni Colonna around 1330. His friend, Petrarch, penned a De viris illustribus, as a collection of 36 short biographies. Boccaccio, inspired by him, wrote De Casibus Virorum Illustrium ("On the Fates of Famous Men"), a collection of 56 biographies. Boccaccio also wrote a feminine complement to it, De mulieribus claris ("On Famous Women"), containing 106 biographies. Leonardo Bruni published translations of Plutarch's Lives.

The humanist Poggio Bracciolini urged in his essay De Nobilitate Liber ("Book on Nobility"), that the Romans should be emulated "for they believed that the images of men who had excelled in the pursuit of glory and wisdom, if placed before the eyes, would help enoble and stir up the soul." A series of instructive uomini illustri portraits was painted for Azzo Visconti in Milan, and was mentioned by Giorgio Vasari, but is now lost, together with a series in Naples, but important early series of portraits of famous men survive in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena and in the Sala Virorum Illustrium ("Hall of Illustrious Men") (or Sala dei Giganti) in the Reggia Carrarese, Padua.

The Giovio Series of portraits of literary figures, rulers, statesmen and other dignitaries, many of which were made from life, was assembled by Renaissance historian and biographer Paolo Giovio (1483–1552) but was subsequently lost. It is represented today by the set of copies made for Cosimo I de' Medici in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The genre continues today, not so much in universal biographical dictionaries, which verge on factual prosopography, but in collections of inspirational biographies such as Profiles in Courage.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

The next thing he did was to add to the two priests of Jupiter and Mars a third in honor of Romulus, whom he called the Flamen Quirinalis. The Romans anciently called their priests Flamines, by corruption of the word Pilamines, from a certain cap which they wore, called Pileus. In those times, Greek words were more mixed with the Latin than at present; thus also the royal robe, which is called Laena, Juba says, is…
Plutarch, Plutarch
States what De viris illustribus is; the author is tied to De viris illustribus in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
For the fortunes of cities as well as of men, they think, have their certain periods of time prefixed, which may be collected and foreknown from the position of the stars at their first foundation. But these and the like relations may perhaps not so much take and delight the reader with their novelty and curiosity as offend him by their extravagance.
Plutarch, The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch
The author is tied to De viris illustribus in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
IX. Et recte, inquit, respondes: praeclare enim explicatur Peripateticorum et Academiae veteris auctoritas. Aristoteles primus species, quas paulo ante dixi, labefactavit: quas mirifice Plato erat amplexatus, ut in iis quiddam divinum esse diceret. Theophrastus autem, vir et oratione suavis et ita moratus, ut prae se probitatem quandam et ingenuitatem ferat, vehementius etiam fregit quodam modo auctoritatem veteris…
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Academica
Close in meaning to De viris illustribus; the term itself is not named.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Encyclopedia.

Explore De viris illustribus in the interactive graph →