Venantius Fortunatus
A Latin poet, born about A.D. 535 at Tarvisium (Treviso) in North Italy. After a learned education in Ravenna, he proceeded, about 560, to Gaul, where he became an ecclesiastic at Poitiers, and died as bishop about 600. Among his works we possess an epic poem on St. Martin, as well as a collection of three hundred poems in eleven books, of very various kinds, including panegyrics, epigrams, letters, elegies, hymns, and hence called Miscellanea. These poems, which are mostly elegiac, are not unsuccessful in form, and are of great value for the history of the time. One of the most interesting is the companion piece to the Mosella of Ausonius (q.v.), the description of a journey by the Moselle and Rhine from Metz to Andernach (De Navigio Suo). The prose works are edited by Krusch and the poems by Leo (Berlin, 1881-85).