Writer fathered a famous Renaissance literary figure
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| Bernardo Tasso was for a time resident poet at the Ducal Palace in Urbino |
He was famous for being the father of Torquato Tasso, who went on to become one of Italy’s greatest Renaissance poet.
Bernardo, who was born in Bergamo in 1493, married Porzia de Rossi while he was in the service of the Prince of Salerno. Torquato was born in Sorrento in 1544 in a building that is now part of the Hotel Tramontano in the centre of the resort.
When Torquato was a child, the Prince of Salerno fell out of favour with the Spanish government of Naples and he was outlawed. His employee, Bernardo, and his son, Torquato, shared in his punishment and were declared rebels of the state and they both had to leave Sorrento.
Bernardo went into the service of Duke Guidobaldo II at his court in Urbino and Torquato went with him and was educated there. While his father was resident poet at the Ducal Palace in Urbino, Torquato studied alongside Francesco Maria della Rovere, the heir to the Duke.
It was in Urbino that Bernardo started writing his major work, L’Amadiji, an epic poem of 100 cantos, which was later completed by Torquato.
While at the court in Urbino, he would read cantos of his epic poem to the Duchess and her ladies, and he would also discuss the merits of Homer, Virgil, Trissino, and Ariosto with the Duke’s librarians and secretaries.
Bernardo went on to serve the Duke of Mantua, Guglielmo Gonzaga, who appointed him Governor of Ostiglia, the place where he died in 1569.
During his life, Bernardo Tasso wrote many psalms, sonnets and odes in the manner of Horace. He published his lyric poems, Amori, in Venice in 1555. His main work, L’Amadiji, was inspired by the Spanish chivalric romance, Amadis de Gaula. Torquato later completed L’Amadiji and published the full work under the title of Floridante in 1587.
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| Torquato Tasso is seen as one of Italy's greatest poets |
His poetry was later to prove inspirational for other writers who followed him, in particular Edmund Spencer and Lord Byron, who visited the places associated with him during his time in Italy.
Torquato Tasso was to spend many years living in Ferrara at the Castle owned by the Este family, where he fell in love with a lady in waiting and wrote love sonnets to her.
But he suffered from the jealous behaviour of the other courtiers, which led to him developing a persecution mania and suspecting he was going to be poisoned. Eventually, he escaped and made his way to Sorrento to visit his sister, Cornelia, who had married there and settled in a house in the historic centre between the main street and the sea.
After some difficult years during which Tasso was confined to a madhouse by his patron, the Duke of Urbino, and later wandered from city to city without settling, he was invited to go and live in Rome by the Pope.
Torquato Tasso died in Rome in 1595, when he was just about to be crowned poet laureate by Pope Clement VIII.
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| Caffe del Tasso's tables in Bergamo are watched over by the statue of Torquato Tasso |
Bernardo Tasso is remembered in his native city, Bergamo, where a street in the Città Bassa, the lower town, is named after the family. His son, Torquato, is also immortalised in the upper town, the Città Alta, by a large statue of him that stands in front of Palazzo della Ragione in the main square, Piazza Vecchia. Torquato Tasso spent only two periods living in his father’s native city, but he wrote about Bergamo with affection. The statue was erected almost 100 years after his death. The bar next to it subsequently changed its name to Caffè del Tasso. Dating back to at least 1476, the bar would have been known during Tasso’s life as Locanda delle Due Spade (Two Swords Inn.) In 1681 when the statue of the poet was erected, the bar’s name was changed to Al Torquato Tasso Caffè e Bottiglieria (Torquato Tasso Café and Wine Shop). Piazza Vecchia, which was remodelled during the Renaissance and has been hailed by architects and writers as the most beautiful square in Italy, is surrounded by old palaces and has a 12th century bell tower that still strikes 100 times at ten pm each night, in recognition of the ancient curfew. The bell would be sounded to warn residents that the gates in the Città Alta’s Venetian walls were about to be closed for the night.
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| Torquato Tasso's sister Cornelia lived in this house in historic Sorrento |
Although Bernardo and Torquato Tasso travelled all over Italy during their lives, Sorrento’s main square has been named after them. Piazza Tasso is right at the hub of Sorrento, in the middle of the main shopping street, Corso Italia, and looks out over Marina Piccola, Sorrento’s port. The house where Bernardo was living when Torquato Tasso was born in 1544, is a few streets away from Piazza Tasso in Via Vittorio Veneto and now forms part of the Imperial Hotel Tramontano. It was at this hotel that the beautiful song Torna a Surriento was composed by Ernesto De Curtis while he was sitting on the terrace. Sorrento is one of southern Italy’s most popular holiday destinations, a beautiful cliff-top town overlooking the Bay of Naples with wonderful views of the volcano Vesuvius and the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida in the distance. Known by Italians as La Gentile, Sorrento has a mild climate and excellent tourist amenities. The historic centre has a wealth of elegant architecture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with some Greek, Roman and medieval structures still preserved as a reminder of historical roots that go back to 600BC.
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More reading:
The troubled life of Torquato Tasso
Bernardo Accolti, love poet of the late Renaissance
Salvatore Quasimodo, the civil engineer who was a Nobel Prize winning-poet
Also on this day:
1533: The birth of philosopher Giacomo Zabarella
1568: The birth of poet and philosopher Tommaso Campanella
1901: The birth of politician Mario Scelba
1908: The birth of entrepreneur Renzo Rivolta
1970: The birth of Paralympian Francesca Porcellato
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