Tasso, TORQUATO, son of the preceding, was born at Sorrento, near Naples, 11th March 1544. He was one of the greatest of Italian poets, though belonging to a time of decadence, to that later 16th century which saw the decline of art and literature, and religious and political liberty in the peninsula crushed under the power and bigotry of Spain. After his father was exiled Torquato lived with his mother, the exemplary Porzia de' Rossi, in Naples, and received his earliest instruction at the Jesuit school there. In 1554 he joined his father in Rome, never again seeing his unfortunate mother, who died, broken-hearted, two years later.
He showed great precocity in his studies, read Latin and Greek fluently at an early age, and composed with ease both prose and verse in Italian. He shared his exiled father's wandering life; increasing his store of learning under his careful supervision at Pesaro, Urbino, and Venice. In 1560 Tasso was sent to study law and philosophy at Padua, and while there composed and published his first work, a romantic poem in twelve cantos, Rinaldo, which he dedicated to the Cardinal Luigi d'Este. In 1565 Tasso entered the service of this cardinal, and by him was introduced to the splendid court of his brother, Alfonso II. d'Este, reigning Duke of Ferrara. The youthful poet was appreciated and encouraged by the sisters of the duke—Lucrezia, afterwards Duchess of Urbino, and Leonora—two princesses renowned even amongst the cultured women of that day for their many brilliant gifts. Amid such congenial surroundings Tasso began his great epic poem and masterpiece, La Gerusalemme Liberata.
In 1571 he accompanied the Cardinal d'Este to France, and was received with favour by Charles IX. and his mother, Catharine de' Medici; and he was warmly welcomed by his brother-poets, chief amongst whom was Ronsard. On his return to Italy in the following year Tasso became definitely attached to the service of Duke Alfonso at Ferrara. This court had been the scene of the earliest revival of the profane drama in Italy towards the end of the 15th century, and it was for this celebrated stage that Tasso wrote in 1573 his beautiful pastoral play, Aminta (1581). The perfection of its style, moulded on classic models, and the melody of its verse won for this exquisite dramatic poem a wide popularity and many imitators. Tasso completed his great epic in 1575, and (like his father before him) submitted it before publication to the judgment of the distinguished savants and critics of the day. Their fault-finding (sometimes just, but pedantic and mixed with religious scruples) and Tasso's replies (never rebellious, and generally yielding, though always full of judgment and fine literary taste) are all recorded in his correspondence and in his Apologia of the poem. These conflicting considerations and discussions coming after his long poetical labours seem to have unlied his sensitive and highly-strung mind, and in 1576 he showed the first signs of the mental disorder which darkened all his later days. He became suspicious, melancholy, and particularly oppressed by the idea that he had offended against the church and been denounced to the Inquisition. On the 18th June 1577 Maffeo Veniero writes to the Grand-duke of Tuscany: 'Of Tasso I give you news that yesterday evening he was imprisoned for having, in the chamber of the Duchess of Urbino, drawn his knife on a serving-man, but he was arrested rather because of his disorder and to cure it than as a punishment. He is of a strange humour, believing himself to have sinned as a heretic, and also has the fear of being poisoned.' After this outbreak the succeeding years of his life are one long chronicle of mental struggles and sufferings of every kind. His first confinement lasted only a few days, and he shortly afterwards fled from Ferrara. Wandering through Italy on foot, he made his way to Naples, where he was affectionately cared for by his sister, Cornelia; but even here he found no rest. He travelled to Rome, and northwards through the principal towns until he reached Turin, on foot and so poorly accoutred and strange in appearance that the guards refused him admittance until recognised by a former friend as the great poet. He was then honourably entertained by the Duke Carlo Emanuele of Savoy. His great longing was to return to Ferrara, the scene of his early triumphs and brightest memories, and in 1579 he seized the occasion of Duke Alfonso's second marriage to present himself anew at that court. He met with a cold reception, and deeply wounded by some real or imagined slight he broke in public into furious invectives against the duke, his courtiers, and all the world. On the 15th March of the same year he was confined by order of the duke in the hospital of St Anna in Ferrara, and there he remained a prisoner for seven years. During these miserable years he produced many noble verses and philosophical dialogues, and a vigorous defence of his Jerusalem, the publication of which, without his leave and with many errors, had sorely grieved him. His many piteous letters of appeal to his friends and patrons, from the pope downwards, for release from prison give a most complete and heart-rending picture of his sufferings at this time. The sad figure of the good, gentle, and great poet in a madhouse, while his famous epic was delighting Italy and all Europe, is one of the most pathetic in literary history, and one which may well interest posterity, even without the romance of his supposed passion for the Princess Leonora, a passion so often alluded to by later poets (especially Goethe, Goldoni, and Byron). There seems to be no positive proof that the unhappy poet nourished any other sentiment for the princess than that of the respectful devotion, admiration, and gratitude natural towards such a patroness. Certainly no manifestation of presumptuous love for the princess was the cause of his imprisonment; all contemporary accounts of his state point to his insanity, bearing the character of religious mania. But doubtless whatever may have been the nature of his feelings to Leonora her death in 1581 must have been a new grief to him. During her fatal illness Tasso writes from prison to her chaplain: 'If my Lady Leonora is better, as it comforts me to believe, and I greatly desire, humbly kiss her hands in my name, most reverend father, letting her know that I have grieved much for her illness, the which I have not bewailed in verse, because of I know not what tacit repugnance of my mind.'
Duke Alfonso had been repeatedly petitioned to set Tasso free. The cruel contrast between his fate and the daily growing fame of his great poem (which had been reprinted six times in a few months) had greatly excited popular interest. At length in July 1586, by the intercession of the Prince Vincenzo Gonzaga, Tasso was liberated, and at once left Ferrara, never to return. He followed his new patron to Mantua, where he remained a year, and where he wrote a tragedy, Torrismondo, his only and not very successful effort of that kind. Broken in health and spirits, he began again his restless wanderings from town to town, spending, however, most of these later years in Rome and Naples, where he tried in vain to recover from his mother's relatives some part of her inheritance, or from the government his father's confiscated estates. He was, however, helped and protected by many kind friends and patrons eager to show honour to so great and unfortunate a genius. He busied himself in rewriting his great epic, according to the modifications proposed by his numerous critics; he tried to observe more strictly the classic unities and historical accuracy, to remove profane episodes and to treat more of religion and theology. The result, a poor spectre of his living masterpiece, even the style and verse being inferior, was published under the name Gerusalemme Conquistata (Rome, 1593, in 4to), and dedicated to Tasso's latest patron, Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini, nephew of Pope Clement VIII. By this pope he was summoned to Rome to be crowned on the Capitol as poet-laureate, like Petrarch. The ceremony, however, never took place, for on Tasso's arrival in the papal city his already weakened health became worse, and he retired to the care of the monks of Sant' Onofrio, a quiet convent on the Janiculum, where, resigned and peaceful, he breathed his last on the 25th April 1595.
Tasso, although not the last great poet that Italy has produced, is certainly the last whose influence made itself felt throughout Europe, and his Jerusalem is the culminating poetical product of his age, as Dante's Divine Comedy and Ariosto's Orlando are of the two preceding centuries. In our own literature we find traces of his influence notably in Milton. His great poem is, like himself, a typical product of his time, with its blind idolatry of classic forms conflicting with newly-revived religious superstition and bigotry, but exempt from the current defects of hypocrisy, affectation, and licentiousness. As Settembrini says: 'One thing
Tasso had, which few in his time possessed, a great heart, and that made of him a true and great poet, and a most unhappy man.' The sincere fervour of his piety and purity of his life are testified by his own writings and by his contemporaries. Tasso's intention was to create in his Jerusalem a great religious epic, his theme was to be the triumph of the warriors of the Cross in the first Crusade, and his hero was to be Godfrey of Bouillon, their commander, his material to be taken from Historia belli sacri verissima, by Tyrinus (Basel, 1559-64). With the history of his nominal hero the poet has entwined fictitious characters and episodes, and it is these creations which give vitality to his work. The melodious verses, in which he has sung the loves of the fair Erminia and the warlike Clorinda and the beauty and wiles of the enchantress Armida, still live on the lips of the Italian people—verses whose authorship seemed to the diseased conscience of poor Tasso a sin to be repented.
Tasso's earliest biographer was his personal friend, the Neapolitan G. Manzo, the same Manzo whom Milton visited in Naples, and to whom he dedicated a Latin poem. This friend thus describes Tasso's appearance (Vita di T. Tasso, 1619): 'He was of tall stature and well proportioned, his complexion of perfect whiteness, the colour of his thick hair and beard between dark and fair, his head large, his forehead square, his eyebrows and lashes black, his eyes large and blue, his nose aquiline, his lips thin and pale, and his limbs so agile that he yielded to none in fencing, riding, and jousting.' More complete than any biography is the picture which is given of his outer and inner life in his copious correspondence in his dialogues and various prose-works, where he reveals himself as a most facile and eloquent prose-writer.
Among Tasso's many commentators and critics we find his great contemporary, Galileo (see the Scritti di Critica letteraria di Galileo, Turin, 1889). The earliest complete edition of the Gerusalemme Liberata is that of Bonna (Ferrara, 1581, 4to); the best modern reprints are those at Modena (1868) and at Florence (1889). Translations of the Jerusalem have been made into many languages; in English the most famous is that of Fairfax (1600; new ed. by H. Morley, 1891); others are by Bent, Broadhead, Robertson, Smith, Wiffen, and Sir J. K. James (1868; new ed. 1884). The most complete biography is the Vita di Tasso, by Serassi (Rome, 1783, 4to; reprinted Florence, 1858); more recent is Studi su T. Tasso, by Ferrazzi Bassano (1880). See also Tasso's letters and prose writings (edited by Guasti, 1854-57); D'Ovidio, Saggi Critici (1879), and Corradi, L'Infermità di Tasso (1881); Letteratura Italiana, by Settembrini (Naples, 1887); Cours de Littérature de Lamartine (1863); Life of Tasso, by Black (Edin. 1810); Life of T. Tasso, by Dean Milman (Lond. 1850, somewhat antiquated); and Miss E. J. Hasell, Tasso (Foreign Classics series, 1882).