Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/520

 TASSONI

464

TATIAN

carried away by the storms of passion, and now he became an almost helpless victim of remorse of con- science. He was tormented by the thought of the hberties he had allowed himself in his poems, and con- sulted t)v in,|in';itni-; Months of painful doubt followed, with happily a little respite which al- lowed him to com- plete his work, some dangerous passages of which he wished to jus- t ify by allegorical interpretation. In 1587 his anxieties returned with in- creased intensity. Court life became unsuitable for him under the circum- stances. He began to travel and left Duke Alphonso, but only tempora- rily, for he re- turned a prey to a kind of mania about persecution which induced the duke, who had lost patience, to send him to St. Anne's lunatic asylum. The pubUcation of the "Gerusalemme hberata" was undertaken by his friends Angelo Ingegneri and Febo Bonna, the latter working almost in accordance with the wishes of the poet. When at length Tasso left the asylum and was re- ceived by the Gonzaga, he began about 1586 to revise his poem and after six years he transformed it into the "Gerusalemme conquistata ", an inferior work. It was, however, more satisfactory to certain critics, who had taken umbrage at the "Gerusalemme liberata". Fi- nally, accepting the invitation of Cardinal Aldobran- dini, Tasso went to Rome, where he died in the Con- vent of Sant' Onofrio, under the protection of the pope, the day before he was to be crowned as poet laureate. Gerusalemme liberata (Florence, 1895). critical edition by SoLERTi; translations of the epic by Smith (London, 1851) and J.\MES (London, 1865) ; Opere minori di T. Tas.to (Bologna, 1895); Prose diierse (Florence, 1875); Leltere di T. Tasso (Flor- ence, 1855-8); Appendice alle opere in prosa (Florence, 1893); Serassi, Vita di Torquato Tasso (1785) ; Solerti, Vita di Tor- Quato Tasso (Turin. 1895); Milman, Life of Torquato Tasso (Lon- don. 1850); D'OviDio, Studi critici (Naples. 1S79); Mazjoni. Tra Libri e carte:CjLyTVjStoriadellaletteraturailaliana,'Kl (Florence, 1865); DE Sanctis. Storia delta Zitt.tfu!., II (Naples. 1894), xvi; FERRAS.SI, T. Tasso (Bassano, 1880); T. Tasso e i bencdetlini cassinessi (Romc,1886-7),BonLTlNG, Tasso and his ^^^{London, 1907).

Giuseppe Gallavresi. Tassoni, .■^lessandro, Itahan poet, b. at Modena in 1565; d. there in 1635. He spent his life in the serv- ice of prelates and princes in Italy, acting as secre- tary or in some similar capacity. His fame depends chiefly upon the undoubted success of his mock-he- roic poem, the "Secchia rapita" (1614), which deals in a pretendedly serious way with a mighty struggle between the citizens of two adjoining towns in Italy over the purloining of a well-bucket. The comic and the serious are skilfully blended throughout and the methods of the ancient epic description are faithfully copied. While in a measure the poem develops germs of the mock-heroic already perceptible in Itahan liter- ature back as far :is the fourteenth centurv, it is more particularly significant as marking a natural outcome of poetizing on chivalrous, romantic subjects, such as Ariosto and Tasso had treated, once these subjects ceased to be regarded with any degree of seriousness as meet for artistic treatment. The "Secchia ra- pita" belongs to the same category as the ancient "Battle of the Frogs and Mice", Lope de Vega's "Gatomaquia", Boileau's "Lutrin" and Pope's

"Rape of the Lock", and ranks worthily with them. The patriotic Italian's dislike of the arrogant invad- ing Spaniard is clear in his " Fihppiche contra gli Spa- gnuoh"; his views on hterary criticism and his disap- proval of the bad taste of his time may be seen in his " Considerazioni sopra le rime del Petrarca" and his " Pensieri diversi ". There are various editions of the "Secchia rapita", e. g., Paris (1622); Modena (1744), with a life by Muratori; Florence (1861), with a study by Carducci; Florence (1887); with the addition of certain minor writings in prose and verse.

RoNCA, La Secchia rapita di Alessandra Tassoni (Caltanisetta, 1884); Chicco, L'umorismo e la Secchia rapita (Parma. 1894).

J. D. M. Ford.

Tatian, a second- century apologist about whose antecedents and early history nothing can be affirmed with certainty except that he was born in Assyria and that he was trained in Greek philosophy. W'hile a young man he travelled extensively. Disgusted with the greed of the pagan philosophers with whom he came in contact, he conceived a profound contempt for their teachings. Repelled by the grossness and immorality of the pagans and attracted by the holiness of the Christian rehgion and the subhmity and sim- plicity of the Scriptures, he became a convert, prob- ably about A. D. 150. He joined the Christian community in Rome, where he was a "hearer" of Justin. There is no reason to think he was converted by the latter. 'V\'hile Justin Uved Tatian remained orthodox. Later (c. 172) he apostatized, became a Gnostic of the Encratite sect, and retiu-ned to the Orient. The circumstances and date of his death are not known. Tatian wrote many works. Only two have survived. One of these, "Oratio ad Gra>cos"(npis"EXX7)ras), is an apology for Christianity, containing in the first part (i-xxxi) an exposition of the Christian Faith with a view to showing its superiority over Greek philosophy, and in the second part a demonstration of the high antiquity of the Christian rehgion. The tone of this apology is bitter and denunciatory. The author inveighs against Hellenism in all its forms and exjiresses the deepest contempt for Greek philosophy and Greek manners.

The other extant work is the "Diatesseron", a harmony of the four Gospels containing in continuous narrative the principal events in the life of Our Lord. The question regarding the language in which this work was composed is still in dispute. Lightfoot, Hilgenfeld, Bardenhewer, and others contend that the original language was Syriac. Harnack, jBurkitt, and others are equally positive that it was composed in Greek and translated into SjTiac during the life- time of Tatian. There are only a few fragments extant in Syriac but a comparatively fviU reconstruc- tion of the whole has been effected from St. Ephraem's commentary, the Syriac text of which has been lost, but which exists in an Armeni;m version. Two revi- sions of the "Diatesseron" are available: one in Latin preserved in the "Codex Fuldensis" of the Gospels dating from about A. D. 545, the other in an Arabic version found in two manuscripts of a later date. The "Diatesseron" or "Evangelion da Mehallete" (the Gospel of the mixed) was practically the only gospel text used in SjTia during the third and fourth centuries. Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa (411-435), ordered the priests and deacons to see that every church should have a copy of the separate Gospefe (Evangelion da Mcpharreshe),and Theodoret. Bishop of Cyrus (423-457), removed more than two hundred copies of the "Diatesseron" from the churches in bia diocese. Several other works written by Tatian have disappeared. In his apology (x\ ) he mentions a work "on animals" and (xvi) one on the "nature of demons". Another work in refutation of the calumnies against the Christians (xl) was planned but perhaps never written. He also wrote a "Book