Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/62

 34 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS TORQUATO TASSO (1544-1595) T ^orquato Tasso, born at Sorrento, March 11, 1544, was the son of Bernardo Tasso by Portia de Rossi, a lady of a noble Neapoli- tan family. His father was a man of some note, both as a political and as a literary char* acter; and his poem " Amadigi," founded on the well-known romance of Amadis de Gaul, has been preferred by one partial critic even to the " Orlando Furioso." Ferrante Sanseverino. Prince of Salerno, chose him for his secretary, and with him and for him Bernardo shared all the vicissitudes of fortune. That prince hav- ing been deprived of his estates, and expelled from the kingdom of Naples by the Court of Spain, Bernardo was involved in his proscrip- tion, and retired with him to Rome. Torquato, then five years old, remained with his mother, who went to reside with her family in Naples. Bernardo Tasso having lost all* hopes of ever returning to that capital, ad- vised his wife to retire with his daughter into a nunnery, and to send Torquato to Rome. Our young poet suffered much in parting from his mother and sister ; but, fulfilling the command of his parents, he joined his father in October, 1554. On this occasion he composed a canzone, in which he compared himself to As- canius escaping from Troy with his father iEneas. The fluctuating fortunes of the elder Tasso caused Torquato to visit succes- sively Bergamo, the abode of his paternal relatives, and Pesaro, where his manners and intelligence made so favorable an impression, that the Duke of Pesaro chose him for companion to his son, then studying under the celebrated Corrado, of Mantua. In 1559, he accompanied his father to Venice, and there perused the best Italian authors, especially Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The next year he went to the University of Padua, where, under Sperone Speroni and Sigonio, he studied Aristotle and the critics ; and by Piccolomini and Pandasio he was taught the moral and philosophical doctrines of Socrates and Plato. However, notwithstanding his severer studies, Torquato never lost sight of his favorite art ; and at the age of seventeen, in ten months, he composed his " Rinaldo," a poem in twelve cantos, founded on the then popular romances of Charlemagne and his paladins. This work, which was published in 1562, excited great admiration, and gave rise to expectations which were justified by the "Jerusalem Delivered." The plan of that immortal poem was conceived, according to Serassi's conjecture