Vida, later Bishop of Alba, was an accomplished poet. His poem on the silkworm was published in Rome in 1527 and dedicated to Isabella d’Este (1474–1539). This 1750 translation is by Samuel Pullein, who had an interest in the cultivation of silk. Here, Vida describes the moment of metamorphosis as the birth of a new species from the old. The long-held belief that metamorphosis was a rebirth only began to be challenged in the seventeenth century.