The Poet Virgil in a Basket

1525

The sorcerer Virgil fell madly in love with the daughter of a Roman emperor. The girl pretended to return his feelings: she would raise him to her bedroom in a basket at night. Instead, she lifted him halfway up the tower wall, and left him hanging there. Thanks to the glances of the scoffing onlookers in the foreground we can discern the dangling Virgil in the distance.