Bernardo Tasso - poet

Writer fathered a famous Renaissance literary figure

Bernardo Tasso was for a time resident
poet at the Ducal Palace in Urbino

Bernardo Tasso, a prolific poet who served as a courtier to various Italian noblemen, died on this day in 1569 in Ostiglia, which was then part of the Duchy of Mantua.

He was famous for being the father of Torquato Tasso, who went on to become one of Italy’s greatest Renaissance poets.

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.

Torquato Tasso is seen as
one of Italy's greatest poets

Torquato Tasso has come to be regarded as the greatest Italian poet of the Renaissance. His most famous work was his epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) in which he gives an imaginative version of the battles between Christians and Muslims at the end of the first crusade during the siege of Jerusalem. 

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.

Caffe del Tasso's tables in Bergamo are watched
over by the statue of Torquato Tasso

Travel tip:

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

Travel tip:

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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Veronica Gambara – writer and stateswoman

Politically astute poet wrote an ode to Emperor Charles V

Veronica Gambara, as portrayed by Antonio
Allegri, known as Il Correggio

Veronica Gambara, a lyric poet who ruled the state of Correggio for 32 years, was born on this day in 1485 in Pralboino in the province of Brescia.

Under her rule, the court of Correggio became an important literary salon visited by many writers and artists.

Gambara signed a treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, which guaranteed Correggio would not be besieged and in her political poems she expressed Italy as an entity centuries before unification.

Gambara came from an accomplished family, one of the seven children of Count Gianfrancesco da Gambara and Alda Pio da Carpi.

The humanist poets Ginevre and Isotta Noarola were her great aunts and Emilia Pia, the principal female interlocutor of Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, was her aunt.

Gambara studied Latin, Greek, philosophy and theology and by the age of 17 had begun corresponding with the poet, Pietro Bembo, who later became her mentor when she sent him her poetry to read.

When Gambara was 24 she married her cousin, Giberto, Count of Correggio, a widower aged 50, and they had two sons, Ippolito and Girolamo. After her husband’s death in 1518, Gambara took charge of the state, which included managing Correggio’s condottieri. She also supervised the education of her two sons and her stepdaughter, Costanza.

Pietro Bembo was an influence on
Gambara's poetry

With Gambara at its head, the court of Correggio was visited by important figures such as Pietro Bembo, Gian Giorgio Trissino, Marcantonio Flaminio, Ludovico Ariosto and Titian.

Although Gambara’s poems were not published during her lifetime they were circulated in manuscript form. About 80 of her poems and 50 of her letters are still in existence.

She composed poems on political issues, devotional poems and love poems dedicated to her husband. She also corresponded with the poet Bernardo Tasso and Emperor Charles V.

After allying Correggio with the Holy Roman Empire, Gambara personally received the Emperor in Correggio in 1530, when she composed an ode to him in Latin. They signed a treaty together guaranteeing Correggio’s safety. This was broken in 1538 when the Count of Mirandola and Concordia launched an attack on Correggio but Gambara organised a successful defence and saw to it that Charles V paid for improved fortifications.

Gambara died in June 1550. A complete English translation of her poems was published in 2014.

The 18th century Palazzo Gambara in Pralboino

Travel tip:

Pralboino, where Veronica Gambara was born, is a village in the province of Brescia in Lombardy. It is about 35 kilometres to the south of the city of Brescia. The 18th century Palazzo Gambara was built on the site of a previous 13th century castle, where the poet lived until her marriage to the Count of Correggio.

The Corso Giuseppe Mazzini in Correggio

Travel tip:

Correggio, which was ruled by Veronica Gambara between 1518 and 1550, is a town in the Emilia-Romagna region. The Renaissance painter Antonio Allegri, who was known as Il Correggio, was born there in 1489. One of the main sights in Correggio is the elegant Palazzo dei Principi in Corso Cavour. In 1659 Correggio was annexed to the Duchy of Modena. The present Duke of Modena, Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este, is the current holder of the title of Prince of Correggio.

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