Mantua

After the Rinaldo was printed in 1562 and while the ideas of Discorsi dell’arte poetica were taking shape, Tasso moved to the University of Bologna in the autumn of that year. Shortly afterwards, after a temporary stay at Ferrara, Bernardo moved to Mantua, taking up service at the Gonzaga court as secretary for criminal cases. Bernardo spent his last years under Duke Guglielmo, who had married Eleanor of Austria, in fairly dire financial circumstances. Torquato joined him there in the summer of 1563, at the end of his first year at Bologna, and again in the summer of 1564, and dedicated a series of encomiastic sonnets to the Duke (as stated in Rime, 744-48). In one of these vacation periods the young Tasso met Laura Peperara, the young woman he addresses in many of his love poems.