Polydore Vergil or Virgil (Italian: Polidoro Virgili, commonly Latinised as Polydorus Vergilius; c. 1470 – 18 April 1555), widely known as Polydore Vergil of Urbino, was an Italian humanist scholar, historian, priest and diplomat, who spent much of his life in England. He is particularly remembered for his works the Proverbiorum libellus (1498), a collection of Latin proverbs; De inventoribus rerum (1499), a history of discoveries and origins; and the Anglica Historia (drafted by 1513; printed in 1534), an influential history of England. He has been dubbed the "Father of English History".

Vergil is sometimes referred to in contemporary documents as Polydore Vergil Castellensis or Castellen, leading some to assume that he was a kinsman of his patron, Cardinal Adriano Castellesi. However, it is more likely that the alias simply indicates that he was in Castellesi's service.

Vergil was born in about 1470 either at Urbino, or more probably at Fermignano, within the Duchy of Urbino. His father, Giorgio di Antonio, owned a dispensary. His grandfather, Antonio Virgili, "a man well skilled in medicine and astrology", had taught philosophy at the University of Paris; as did Polydore's own brother, Giovanni-Matteo Virgili, at Ferrara and Padua. Another brother, Girolamo, was a merchant trading with England. The niece of Polydore Vergil, Faustina, married Lorenzo Borgogelli, count of Fano, from whom descend the family of Borgogelli Virgili.

Polydore was educated at the University of Padua, and possibly at Bologna. He was ordained by 1496. He was probably in the service of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, before 1498, as in the dedication of his Proverbiorum Libellus (April 1498) he styles himself Guido's client. His second book, De Inventoribus Rerum, was dedicated to Guido's tutor, Lodovico Odassio, in August 1499.

At some point prior to 1502 Polydore entered the service of Pope Alexander VI.

In 1502, Vergil travelled to England as the deputy of Cardinal Adriano Castellesi in the office of Collector of Peter's Pence, and, in practice, the Cardinal's agent in a variety of affairs. In October 1504 he was enthroned Bishop of Bath and Wells as proxy for Adriano; and in 1508 he himself was installed as Archdeacon of Wells. He probably spent little time in Wells, but was active as the Chapter's representative in London. He also donated a set of hangings for the quire of Wells Cathedral. He held other ecclesiastical sinecures, including, from 1503, the living of Church Langton, Leicestershire; from 1508 prebends in Lincoln and Hereford Cathedrals; and from 1513 the prebend of Oxgate in St Paul's Cathedral.

As an established author, and a representative of Italian humanist learning, Vergil was received in England as a minor celebrity, and was welcomed at court by King Henry VII, who was more interested in humanist scholars than his predecessors. He recognized the advantages humanism would offer to legitimise his claim to the throne, which was still vulnerable to challenge after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, and the role that diffusion of humanist education would take in establishing a more educated, bureaucratic government than the feudal aristocracy. It was at the King's behest that Vergil began work on his Anglica Historia, a new history of England, probably as early as 1505, retelling the history of the Wars of the Roses to emphasise that the war ended with the new monarch's reign.

On 22 October 1510, he was naturalised English.