Marco Girolamo Vida (1485-1566), humanist and bishop, came to prominence as a Latin poet in the Rome of Leo X and Clement VII. It was Leo who commissioned his famous epic, the "Christiad", a retelling of the life of Christ in the style of Vergil, which was eventually published in 1535. It was by far the most popular Christian epic of the Renaissance, appearing in more than sixty editions before 1600. It was translated into dozens of languages, including Persian and Croatian, and was widely imitated by vernacular poets such as Abraham Cowley and John Milton. This translation is based on the text of the first edition.