Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Vida wrote a considerable amount of Latin poetry, both secular and sacred, in
classical style, particular the style of Virgil. Among his best-known works are the
didactic poem in three books, De arte poetica (On the Art of Poetry), partly
inspired by Horace, and Scacchia Ludus ("The Game of Chess"), translated into
many languages over the centuries. Both poems were first published in 1527. His
major work was the Latin epic poem Christiados libri sex ("The Christiad in Six
Books"), in the style and much of the language of Virgil. He began work on it under
Pope Leo X in the 1510s but did not complete it until the early 1530s. It was
published in 1535, well after the pope's death.