Tasso, Torquato 1544-95
Italian poet

The son of Bernardo Tasso, he was born in Sorrento. He was sent (1560) to study law and philosophy at Padua, where he published his first work, a romantic poem, Rinaldo (1562, Eng trans 1792). At the court of Duke Alphonso II d'Este of Ferrara, he began his major work, the epic poem, Gerusalemme Liberata (1580, Eng trans Godfrey of Bouillon: The Recovery of Jerusalem, 1600), a story of the First Crusade, which he completed in 1575. He later rewrote it in response to criticisms, as Gerusalemme Conquistata (1593, 'Jerusalem Conquered'). For the court theatre he wrote the pastoral play, Aminta (1573, Eng trans 1591). In 1579 he was confined at Ferrara by order of the duke as insane, not, as is often alleged, for his love for the Princess Leonora, a story on which Lord Byron based his Lament of Tasso. In his seven years' confinement he wrote many verses and philosophical dialogues, and when he was freed in 1586 on the intercession of Prince Vincenzo Gonzaga, he followed his new patron to Mantua, where he wrote his only tragedy, Il Re Torrismondo (1586, 'King Torrismondo'). Summoned to Rome by Pope Clement VIII to be crowned on the Capitol as Poet Laureate, he took ill on arrival and died.

Bibliography: A Solerti, Vita di Tasso (3 vols, 1895)