The paper presents a new method to determine the six elastic bending rigidities of thin anisotropic plates. The experimental procedure only requires one plate specimen submitted to several bending tests performed on the same testing device. The data processing is based on the principle of virtual work and it is shown that simple linear relationships between the bending rigidities, applied loads, and plate curvature can be derived using particular virtual displacement fields. The unknown plate rigidities are the solution of a set of linear equations. The numerical simulations of various relevant bending configurations of anisotropic laminated plates point out the efficiency of this new approach.