Bust portraits of the authors in three rows, with Shakespeare in the center. Each portrait is numbered, corresponding to a key inscribed in plate beneath image which reads: 1. Cervantes (Spanish) 2. Dante (Italian) 3. Petrarch (Italian) 4. Shakespeare (English) 5. Calderon (Spanish) 6. Ariosto (Italian) 7. Milton (English) 8. Tasso (Italian). Dated mid-19th century. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (September 29, 1547 - April 22, 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. Durante degli Alighieri (1265 - 1321) was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 - July 19, 1374) was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564 - April 23, 1616) was an English poet and playwright. Pedro Calder籀n de la Barca (January 17, 1600 - May 25, 1681) was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. Ludovico Ariosto (September 8, 1474 - July 6, 1533) was an Italian poet. John Milton (December 9, 1608 - November 8, 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant. Torquato Tasso (March 11, 1544 - April 25, 1595) was an Italian poet.