Editing Torquato Tasso (section)

===In the madhouse of St. Anna===
In the summer of 1578 he ran away again, travelling through [[Mantua]], Padua, Venice, and Urbino [[Lombardy]]. In September he reached the gates of [[Turin]] on foot and was courteously entertained by [[Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy]]. Wherever he went, wandering like the world's rejected guest, he met with the honour due his illustrious name. Great folk gladly opened their houses to him, partly in compassion, partly in admiration of his genius. But he soon wearied of their society and wore their kindness thin by his querulous peevishness. It seemed, moreover, that life was intolerable to him outside Ferrara. Accordingly, he once more opened negotiations with the duke; and in February 1579 he again set foot in the castle.{{sfn|Symonds|1911|p=444}}

Alfonso was about to contract his third marriage, this time with a princess of the house of [[Mantua]]. He had no children, and unless he got an heir there was a probability that his state would fall to the [[Holy See]], as in fact it eventually did. The nuptial festivals, on the eve of which Tasso arrived, were therefore not an occasion of great rejoicing for the elderly bridegroom. As a forlorn hope Alfonso had to wed a third wife; but his heart was not in it and his expectations were far from sanguine.{{sfn|Symonds|1911|p=444}}

Tasso, preoccupied as always with his own sorrows and his own sense of dignity, made no allowance for the troubles of his master. Rooms below his rank, he thought, had been assigned him; the Duke was engaged. Without exercising common patience, or giving his old friends the benefit of the doubt, Tasso broke into terms of open abuse, behaved like a lunatic, and was sent off without ceremony to the madhouse of St. Anna. This happened in March 1579, and there he remained until July 1586. Duke Alfonso's long patience at last had given way. He firmly believed that Tasso was insane, and he felt that if he were so St. Anna was the safest place for him.{{sfn|Symonds|1911|pp=444–445}}

[[File:DelacroixTasso.jpg|left|250px|thumb|''Tasso in the Hospital of St. Anna at Ferrara'' by [[Eugène Delacroix]]. Tasso spent the years 1579–1586 in the madhouse of St. Anne.]]

After the first few months of his incarceration, he obtained spacious apartments, received the visits of friends, went abroad attended by responsible persons of his acquaintance, and was allowed to correspond freely with others. The letters written from St. Anna to the princes and cities of Italy, to warm well-wishers, and to men of the highest reputation in the world of art and learning, form the most valuable source of information, not only on his then condition, but also on his temperament at large. It is singular that he spoke always respectfully, even affectionately, of the Duke. Some critics have attempted to make it appear that he was hypocritically kissing the hand which had chastised him, with the view of being released from prison, but no one who has impartially considered the whole tone and tenor of his epistles will adopt this opinion. What emerges clearly from them is that he laboured under a serious mental disease, and that he was conscious of it.{{sfn|Symonds|1911|p=445}}

Meanwhile, he occupied his uneasy leisure with copious compositions. The mass of his prose dialogues on philosophical and ethical themes, which is very considerable, belong to the years of imprisonment in St. Anna. Except for occasional odes or sonnets—some written at request, others inspired by his keen sense of suffering and therefore poignant, he neglected poetry. In the year 1580, he heard that part of the ''Gerusalemme'' was being published without his permission and without his corrections. The following year, the whole poem was given to the world, and in the following six months seven editions issued from the press.{{sfn|Symonds|1911|p=445}}

The prisoner of St. Anna had no control over his editors; and from the masterpiece which placed him on the level of [[Petrarch]] and [[Ludovico Ariosto|Ariosto]] he never derived one penny of pecuniary profit. A rival poet at the court of Ferrara undertook to revise and edit his lyrics in 1582. This was [[Giovanni Battista Guarini|Battista Guarini]]; and Tasso, in his cell, had to allow odes and sonnets, poems of personal feeling, occasional pieces of compliment, to be collected and emended, without lifting a voice in the matter.{{sfn|Symonds|1911|p=445}}

A few years later, in 1585, two Florentine pedants of the [[Crusca Academy]] declared war against the ''Gerusalemme''. They loaded it with insults, which seem to those who read their pamphlets now mere parodies of criticism. Yet Tasso felt bound to reply; and he did so with a moderation and urbanity which prove him to have been not only in full possession of his reasoning faculties, but a gentleman of noble manners also. The man, like [[Hamlet]], was distraught through ill accommodation to his circumstances and his age; brain-sick he was undoubtedly; and this is the Duke of Ferrara's justification for the treatment he endured. In the prison, he bore himself pathetically, peevishly, but never ignobly.{{sfn|Symonds|1911|p=445}}

What remained over, untouched by the malady, unoppressed by his consciousness thereof, displayed a sweet and gravely-toned humanity. The oddest thing about his life in prison is that he was always trying to place his two nephews, the sons of his sister Cornelia, in court service. One of them he attached to [[Guglielmo I of Gonzaga|Guglielmo I, Duke of Mantua]], the other to [[Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma]].{{sfn|Symonds|1911|p=445}}