Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/78

* TASSO. 54 Ferrara in 1565, and tlicre devoting some atten- tion to his (lerusulemiiie, already begun, he also played a distinguished part at the Court of the Duke, Alfonso II. Tasso was regularly attached to the suite of Alfonso II. in 1572, and left with full leisure for his literary pursuits, so that in 1573 he was able to compose in a short time his excellent pastoral drama, the Amiiita, and to continue work upon the Oerusulemme, which was finished by 1575. In this same year he was given the sine- cure post of historiographer of the Court of Este. Troubles of various kinds now began to affect his mind, and his mental ailment, made worse by a blow on the head received during a quarrel, developed into a mania, which consisted in a belief on his part that he was inclining to heretical principles and was therefore watched and persecuted. In June, 1577, he drew a knife upon a servant who seemed to be watching him as he was conversing with the Princess Lucrezia d'Este, and by order of the Duke he was confined in a room of the palace that he might there receive treatment. Having been later transferred to the Franciscan monastery in Fer- rara, he escaped thence one night in July, 1579, and wandered for a while begging his way about Italy, and fleeing in ttirn from the various asy- lums offered him. During the lucid intervals of this period he composed several of his best dialogues. In 1579 he returned tm Ferrara, at a time when the attention of the Court was wrapt in the nuptials of the Duke and Margherita Gonzaga. Having failed on this account to obtain the audience that he sought, he became frantic and, bursting into the Court one day, he behaved so violently that it was found necessary to imprison him in the insane asylum of Sant' Anna. He was treated kindly and was allowed to receive the visits of princes, persons of the Court and other friends. At one moment a furious maniac, at the next he was in' perfect possession of his faculties and could write his philosophical Dialoghi. As .soon as his confinement in Sant' Anna be- came known, pirated editions of his works be- gan to appear. In 1580 a certain Malaspina published in Venice a garbled edition of four- teen cantos of the Ocnisnlcmme under the title Goffredo. and this induced a friend of Tasso, Angelo Ingegneri, to publish a more correct edi- tion at Parma and Casalmaggiore (1581). Still better editions are the two that appeared at Ferrara, also in 1581. prepared by still another friend of the poet, Bonni, who had access to Tasso's own manuscript. But the Gerusalemme Uberata, thus given to the public in its proper form, no longer pleased its author, who set to work to correct and remodel it. eventually pro- ducing the luckless flcriisatemmc contjiiistata. a work decidedly inferior to the earlier and in- spired epic. Vincenzo Gonzaga, Prince of Mantua, obtained of the Duke of Ferrara, in 1586, permission to maintain the poet in his own household, and took him away with him. While living with this patron, Tasso completed his tragedy, T! re Tor- rismondo (published at Bergamo, 1587), but his malady regained control of him and, fleeing again, he resimied his wandering life. Having visited Bologna, Naples, Rome, and Florence, he TASSO. returned to the Court of Mantua in 1591 ; but toward the end of the year he went again to Rome in company with the Duke, and during" the little while he was yet to live he spent his time between Rome and Naples. In 1593 the Gerusa- Icmme con<iuist(itn was published, and in 1594 Pope Clement VIII. summoned Tasso to the Capi- tol to be crowned as poet laureate. This. ceremony was prevented, however, by the increasing illness of Tasso, who died April 25, 1595. Legendary ac- counts of the adventures of the unfortunate poet have played a considerable part in the literature of both Italy and other foreign lands, and have afforded themes for the imagination of Goethe, Byron, Lamartine, Espronceda, Leopardi, Prati, and Carducci ; but sober historical investigation has made clear that the poet was insane and that Alfonso d'Este was his friend and patron rather than his tyrannical master. Tasso's prose works embrace his correspondence {Epistolario). DiaJoghi (dialogues on philosophi- cal, moral, literary, and icsthetical subjects), Orazioni, Trattati, Discorsi (these last deal with the nature of heroic poetrj-. the polemic stirred up by his Gerusalemme, etc.). The poetical works include his Rime (sonnets, octaves, can- zoni, etc., some of them love lyrics in the Pe- trarchian manner, others religious and political in tone) ; the Rinaldo (his early chivalrous poem of twelve cantos in octaves, narrating the adventures of the French hero. Renaut de Mon- tauban. and thus dealing with the Old French legendary matter about Charlemagne and his peers, which had been introduced into Northern Italy at a very early date — to this matter the post has added a good deal of his own invention) ; the Aminta, the best Italian pastoral drama; the tragedy Torrismoiido (notable as being one of the first literary attempts in Italy to deal with the Northern Germanic matter that ha.s since been so important in the romantic move- ment) : // Monte Olireto (a fragment in octaves, celebrating the origin of the congregation of the monks of Jlount Olivet) ; Le settegiomnte del numdo crcato (a philosophical and imaginative account of the creation written in blank verse) ; La Gerusalemme Uberata (his masterpiece and one of the greatest glories of Italian literature, singing in twenty cantos of octaves the crusade of Godfrey of Bouillon and developing in con- nection with it many beautiful love episodes). Bibliography. Solerti's ed. of the Opere minori in versi (vols. i. and ii., Poemi minori. Bologna, 1891: vol. iii., Teatro, ib., 1895: vols, iv.- vii.. Rime) and the eds. of the Gerusalemme Uberata by S. Ferrari (Florence, 1890) and So- lerti (Florence, 1895). Consult: Solerti, Vita, di Torqvnto Tasso (Turin. 1895) ; Ferrazzi, Tor- quato Tasso. studi hiofirafici-eritici-hihUofirafici (Bassano, 1880) ; Cherbuliez. Le prince Vital, essai et rccit a propos de la folie dii Tasse (Paris, 1864) ; D'Ovidio. "II carattere. gli amori e le sventure di Torquato Tasso." in tlie Stndf eritici (Naples. 1879); Proto. Siil Rinaldo di Torquato Tnsso (Naples, 1895); Vivaldi, finlle fonti della Gerusalemme Uberata (Catanzaro, 1893) ; Multineddu, F,e fonti della Gerusalemme Ubernta (Sassari. 1895) : De Grisy. De T. Tassi Poemate quod In.'icribitur Gerusalemme eonquis- tafa (Paris. 1867); Mazzoni. "Delia Geru- salemme conquistata." in In Bihlioteea (Bologna, 1886) ; Guidi, Annali delle edizioni e delle ver-