Tasso, Torquato ............................... T
(1544–1595)
Considered the finest Italian poet of the
late Renaissance, Torquato Tasso was the
son of Bernardo Tasso, a poet and courtier
whoservedassecretarytotheprinceof
Salerno. When the prince was banished by
the King of Naples, Torquato and his fam-
ily lost their property and were forced to
move from Sorrento. Torquato lived in
Naples and was educated by the new order
of Jesuits, the guardians of doctrine and
religious expression of the Catholic
Counter-Reformation. He learned Latin
and Greek before leaving Naples for Rome,
where his father was serving the prince of
Sorrento in exile. In 1557, at the age of
thirteen, Torquato already enjoyed a repu-
tation as a scholar and poet, and was hired
as a tutor to the son of Duke Guidobaldo
of Urbino. Tasso studied law and philoso-
phy at the universities of Padua and Bolo-
gna. He preferred poetry, however, and
first won renown in 1562 withRinaldo,an
epic poem of chivalry and courtly man-
ners. He also wrote a didactic work,Dis-
courses on the Art of Poetry. He earned a
reputation as a critic and theorist on po-
etry, while his career as a scholar was cut
short at the University of Bologna, where
he was ostracized for writing satiric verses
about students and professors.
In 1565 Tasso entered the service of
the d’Este family of Ferrara as a court
poet. He completedAminta, a pastoral play
in verse and music that combined myth
and idealized court life, in 1573. This work
had an important influence on Italian mu-
sic and the development of opera over the
next two centuries. In 1575, Tasso’s famous
epic poemJerusalem Liberatedwas first
published. Written in the poetic form
known asottava rima, in which the poem
is divided into eight-line stanzas,Jerusalem
LiberatedusedThe Aeneidof the Roman
poet Virgil as its model. Tasso described
the First Crusade, the exploits of the
Christian knight Godfrey of Bouillon and
a fictional hero, Rinaldo, and the romantic
idylls of several invented characters.
Trained in the strictures of the Jesuit or-
der, however, Tasso worried for the rest of
his life about the religious propriety of his
work. He submitted the poem to several
scholars as well as to the church for re-
view. When the poem drew criticism for
its structure, characterizations, and reli-
gious tone, Tasso began putting it through
a drastic revision that drained his creativ-
ity as well as his sanity.
In 1576 Tasso began suffering from a
mental illness that some modern histori-
ans have identified as schizophrenia. He
grew suspicious and paranoid, fearing that
the Duke of Ferrara and many others
meant to do him harm. Outbursts of vio-
lent anger alternated with depression.
When he assaulted a servant whom he sus-
pected of spying on him, he was sent to a
convent by the duke. He escaped to Sor-
rento but returned to Ferrara in 1579,
where Duke Alfonso was celebrating his
wedding. On arriving in Ferrara, however,
Tasso violently denounced the duke and
for this he was imprisoned in a hospital