3-011-864 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Convent of St. Onofrio, near Rome, in which Tasso died, 1864. Engraving from a sketch by M. Mariani. 'The painful tale of the life and sufferings of Torquato Tasso, one of Italy's most graceful bards, will ever remain a stigma upon the annals of that nation during the sixteenth century. Born in 1511, and dying on the 25th of April, 1595, he passed the meridian of his life (from 1579 to 1586) shut up as a madman at Ferrara. The persecution and imprisonment of Tasso by the Duke Alphonso, his ultimate release through the intervention of the Duke of Mantua and the supplications of all Italy, the preparations for his triumph during his retreat at the Convent of St. Onofrio, his death there on the eve of its celebration, and his subsequent immortality, are all matters with which the reader is undoubtedly well acquainted...The hospitality of the monks to Tasso was repaid at the revolution, when the French spared (exceptionally) the Convent of St. Onofrio, on account of the conduct of its former generous occupants towards [Tasso]...The convent of St. Onofrio is a small, refuge, calm, tranquil, and sufficiently far from the rumours of the city to render it a fitting spot for a poet's closing scene'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.