Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso
Portrait of Torquato Tasso, aged 22, by Jacopo Bassano
Born	(1544-03-11)11 March 1544 Sorrento, Kingdom of Naples
Died	25 April 1595(1595-04-25) (aged 51) Rome, Papal States
Occupation	Poet
Language	Italian
Genre	Epic poetry lyric poetry dialogue treatise
Literary movement	Renaissance literature, Mannerism
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Torquato Tasso (/ˈtæsoʊ/ TASS-oh, also US: /ˈtɑːsoʊ/ TAH-soh, Italian: [torˈkwaːto ˈtasso]; 11 March 1544 – 25 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the Siege of Jerusalem of 1099.

Tasso had mental illness and died a few days before he was to be crowned on the Capitoline Hill as the king of poets by Pope Clement VIII.^[1] His work was widely translated and adapted, and until the beginning of the 20th century, he remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe.^[2]