Virgilia is the wife of Coriolanus in William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's play Coriolanus

Coriolanus (play)

Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader, Gaius Marcius Coriolanus.-Characters:*Caius Martius, later surnamed Coriolanus...

(1607–1610), in which same play Volumnia

Volumnia (Shakespeare)

Volumnia is a character in William Shakespeare's play Coriolanus, the mother of Caius Martius Coriolanus'. She plays a large role in Coriolanus' life, encouraging him in his military success and urging him to seek political office...

 is his mother. With respect to the legendary figure Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, some accounts (Brewer 1898) say that his wife's name was actually Volumnia, probably following the Roman historian Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

. However, in the very influential account of his life, and one familiar to Shakespeare, namely, Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, the wife's name is Virgilia, or in John Dryden

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...

's translation, Vergilia. Virgilia is described by John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

as "perhaps loveliest" of Shakespeare's female characters.