On October 7, 1571, the Holy League Alliance of Spain, Venice, and the papacy achieved a decisive and unexpected victory over the Ottoman navy in the battle of Lepanto. Hundreds of poems in both Latin and the vernacular were circulated immediately after the battle. While studies have shown how the vernacular poetry of Lepanto informed distinct national identities, this paper will consider a counterbalancing phenomenon: why large numbers of Italian poets from diverse social contexts and regions wrote Latin poems about the battle. Their efforts to articulate the significance of the victory in Latin seem to stem from a renewed imperial vision to the shared inheritance of Rome to the continued complexities of empire.