TASSO, TORQUATO Italian poet, son of the preceding, was born at Sorrento on March 11, 1544. He was brought up at Naples, where he lived with his mother and his only sister Cornelia, and was educated by the Jesuits. He was a precocious child and famous in Naples for his learning when, at ten years old, he joined his father in exile in Rome. In 1557 he accompanied his father to the court of Urbino. Torquato, a handsome and brilliant lid, now became the companion in sports and studies of the young heir, Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere. He met there many of the most famous scholars of the day, including Aldus Manutius and the critic Speroni. At Venice, whither his father went to superintend the printing of the Amadigi (156o), he found himself the pet and prodigy of a distinguished literary circle. He was then sent to study law at Padua, but his distaste for the subject led Bernardo to allow his son to exchange the study of law for that of philosophy and poetry at Padua, and then at Bologna. In 1561 he published some poems, and before the end of 1562 produced a narrative poem, Rinaldo, in twelve cantos which proposed to combine the regularity of the Virgilian with the attractions of the romantic epic. Tasso, who was still only 18 years old, sought to give the adventures of Roland a classic form. He was now famous. In 1565 he became attached to the learned court of Ferrara, at first in the service of the Cardi nal Luigi d'Este.
The years between 1565 and 157o seem to have been the hap piest of Tasso's life, although his father's death in 1569 caused him profound pain. He was the idol of the most brilliant court in Italy. The princesses Lucrezia and Leonora d'Este took him under their protection. He was admitted to their familiarity, and there is some reason to think that neither of them was indifferent to him personally. In 157o he travelled to Paris with the cardinal. Frankness of speech and a certain habitual want of tact caused a disagreement. He left France next year, and took service under Duke Alfonso II. of Ferrara. The most important events in Tasso's biography during- the following four years are the publica tion of the Aminta in 1573 and the completion of the Gerusa lemme Liberate in 1574. The Aminta is a pastoral drama of very
simple plot, but of exquisite lyrical charm. It was represented at Ferrara in the summer of 1573, at the critical moment when modern music, under Palestrina's impulse, was becoming the main art of Italy.
The Gerusalemme Liberate occupies a larger space in the his tory of European literature, and is a more considerable work. Yet the commanding qualities of this epic poem, those which revealed Tasso's individuality and which made it a classic, beloved by the people no less than by persons of culture, are akin to the lyrical graces of Aminta. It was finished in Tasso's 31st year, and was read to the duke and to Princess Lucrezia in the summer of 1575. As in the Rinaldo, so also in the Jerusalem Delivered, he aimed at ennobling the Italian epic style by preserving strict unity of plot and heightening poetic diction. He chose Virgil for his model, took the first crusade for subject, infused the fervour of religion into his conception of the hero Godfrey. But his own natural bias was for romance. Godfrey, a mixture of pious Aeneas and Tridentine Catholicism, is not the real hero of the Gerusalemme. Fiery Rinaldo, Ruggiero, impulsive Tancredi, and the chivalrous Saracens with whom they clash in love and war, divide our interest and divert it from Goffredo. The action of the epic turns on Armida, the beautiful witch, sent forth by the infernal senate to sow discord in the Christian camp. She is converted to the true faith by her adoration for a crusading knight, and quits the scene with a phrase of the Virgin Mary on her lips. Brave Clorinda, donning armour like Marfisa, fighting in duel with her devoted lover, and receiving baptism from his hands in her pathetic death; Erminia seeking refuge in the shepherd's hut—these lovely pagan women, so touching in their sorrows, so romantic in their adven tures, so tender in their emotions, rivet our attention, while we skip the battles, religious ceremonies, conclaves and stratagems.