Cicero at The Louvre, Paris

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This marble portrait of Cicero was sculpted by Simone Biano in Loro Ciuggena, where he was born in Tuscany but passed away in Venice in 1553. The sculpture bears the artist's signature on its back in Greek, translated to read "Created by Simon Leikos, the Venetian". He drew freely from ancient busts, clearly dated to the XCI Century and much like other portraits of Cicero. Marcus Tullius Cicero, often anglicized as Tully, was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. Born on 3 January 106 BC, he died on 7 December 43 BC. He came from a wealthy family of the Roman equestrian order and is widely regarded as one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. His impact on the Latin language was so profound that the subsequent history of prose in both Latin and European languages up to the 19th century was either a reaction against or a return to his style. As Michael Grant notes, "the influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature and ideas far exceeds that of any other prose writer in any language". Cicero introduced the Romans to the major schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary (with neologisms like humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia) that distinguished him as a linguist, translator, and philosopher.