Poet and notable legislator, Waller authored a variety of coterie verse, including "The Story of Phoebus and Daphne, Applied" (1645).

Leader in the Wars of Scottish Independence, Wallace became Scotland's greatest national hero and the subject for several literary works as well as the film biography Braveheart.

German writer who often published under the pseudonym Viet Weber. Among other works published under that name, he published Teufelsbeschwörung, which was translated into English as The Sorcerer and published in 1795 by Joseph Johnson.

Author of the Brut d'Angleterre (Le Roman de Brut, 1155).

French author of a voluminous body of poetry, criticism, history, and drama, Voltaire was probably best known for his comic yet philosophical fiction. Among his most notable works, his first dramatic tragedy, Oedipe (1718), was a tremendous success. His epic poem La Henriade (1723) celebrates the life of Henry IV of France. Zaire (1732) is a tragic love drama. Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733) offers a comparison between England and France that is favorable to England particularly for its religious tolerance.

French court and occasional poet, Voiture was admired for the letters and poems he circulated among a fashionable literary coterie.

Notable lawyer and professor of law at Heidelberg University and Leyden University.

The Visconti family ruled Milan from the late thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century.

Roman poet whose rich and complex Eclogues (c. 37 B.C.) and Georgics (29 B.C.) provided the model for poetry about rural life to subsequent ages. His Aeneid (written c. 29-19 B.C.), an epic poem on the founding of the city of Rome that centers on the story of the hero Aeneas, was incomplete at the time of his death.

The protagonist of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," (1601-1602?) producing all of the momentum within the play. After being shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria and separated from her twin brother, Sebastian, Viola disguises herself as a eunuch named Cesario so she may serve the Duke Orsino. Viola falls in love with the Duke, although he is in love with the Countess Olivia, who, in turn, falls in love with Cesario. When Sebastian arrives in Illyria, he and Olivia marry, as she believes him to be Cesario.