The poet, standing crowned with laurel, leaning on a stone 1620-21 Jusepe de Ribera (called Lo Spagnoletto) Spanish Dressed in voluminous robes, crowned with laurel, and leaning on a stone with head in hand, The Poet is one of Ribera's most striking images made early in the artist's career. The iconography, a synthesis of the attributes of Melancholy and Poetry, has been explored in detail by scholars, who have found literary parallels ranging from verses by Walther von der Vogelweide (1170-1230) to works by Petrarch and Lorenzo de' Medici. Another suggestion that the poet is Virgil seems plausible, especially since his tomb was traditionally thought to be in Naples. Generally identified with a columbarium, or dovecote mausoleum, above the 'Grotto' or tunnel of Posilipo, the purported burial place of the famous poet was a tourist attraction beginning at least in the sixteenth century. A well-known legend had it that on top of the tomb grew a bay tree that continued to blossom over the