One of the most important poets of the Augustan period. He was born in 70 BC in Andes, a small village near Mantua and died at Brindisi in 19 BC. A protégé of the famous literary patron Maecenas, he is regarded as the ”Latin Homer”, since the Aeneid, his magnificent account of the adventures of Aeneas, mythical founder of Rome, was the Romans’ national  epic. In it Virgil succeeds in presenting Rome as a global superpower with a mission and a historical responsibility. His other major works are the Eclogues or Bucolics, a collection of idylls, and the Georgics, a didactic epic. His work was tremendously influential both in Antiquity and later, in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In Dante’s Divine Comedy Virgil is the poet’s companion and guide through the Underworld.