Ruin
Eventually the tomb fell into ruin and its exact location was forgotten. It is said that a certain English scholar Ludowicus, acting secretly for the Norman king Roger II (c.1136 CE), who was trying to conquer Naples, came looking for Virgil's bones and his book of magic. Using secret arts Ludowicus found them. The people of Naples prevented him from taking the bones because they protected the city, but he was allowed to take the book, the Ars Notaria. John of Naples showed parts of this book to Gervase of Tilbury around the year 1200.
The bones were placed in an ampule (ampulla) in the Castel dell'Ovo, where they guarded the city. (Many cities were similarly protected by heroes; for example Aristotle's bones guarded Palermo, and other cities were protected by Orpheus, Hesiod, Alcmene, Plato and others.) Other sources say that it was Robert of Anjou who placed Virgil's bones there.
Read more about this topic: Virgil's Tomb
Famous quotes containing the word ruin:
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)
“Resolv’d to ruin or to rule the state.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“A tempest cracked on the theatre. Quickly,
The wind beat in the roof and half the walls.
The ruin stood still in an external world.
It had been real. It was something overseas
That I remembered, something that I remembered
Overseas, that stood in an external world.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)