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Torquato Tasso
The raid, however, was a pivotal inspiration for his masterpiece Gerusalemme liberata (1581), still considered one of the great epic poems in Italian and at the time viewed as the great Epic of Christendom, recalling, as it did, the First Crusade with its stirring opening: Canto l'arme pietose, e 'l capitano/ Che il gran
sepolcro liberò di Cristo— Christians at the time of Tasso were still almost within living memory of the fall of the thousand-year old Christian Empire of Byzantium, and Gerusalemme filled a great need for rousing reminders of past glories. Tasso was compared to Homer, Vergil and Dante, and though such comparisons today seem somewhat too enthusiastic, the work fit the spirit of the times perfectly and was the most popular piece of Italian literature for years. Nevertheless, Tasso's life was a turbulent one, for even his masterpiece, in spite of popular acclaim, was severely criticized by the Inquisition. This disturbed him, as did the relative failure of virtually all of his other works. Tasso has become a metaphor of the disturbed misunderstood genius. He made virtually no money at all from Gerusalemme liberata, and he wandered incessantly, selling his stray poems. Also, he suffered bouts of depression and madness, even being locked away for a while. From a distance, then, the cliffs and mountains of
Sorrento are proverbially tranquil, yet, they are also
a facade, behind which is a violent history and the
life of one such as Tasso, who died in 1595
after a life of disappointment and hardship as much as
one of acclaim. to: portal index for
history to:
portal index for literature |
Torquato Tasso,
Sorrento's most famous son, was not in the town on
June 13, 1558, the date of a particularly vicious
sacking of Sorrento by Saracen pirates, one that
killed thousands of persons, and saw many more carried
away into slavery. He was fourteen years old at the
time and had already moved away to Rome. [For a
related item on the so-called "Saracen Towers,"