The phases of Tasso's confinement

Vinca Fortuna omai se sotto il peso

di tante cure alfin cader conviene,

vinca, e del mio riposo e del mio bene

l’empio trofeo sia nel suo tempo appeso (Rime, 664, 1-4)

These are the opening lines to the group of poems Tasso wrote after being locked up. In the course of his seven years of confinement, surveillance was gradually relaxed but never entirely lifted. The period was crucial, representing a turning point in his creative output, which now took a different direction and form. Throughout his time at Sant’Anna, he made repeated requests for mercy, confessed to his crimes (identified at different times as lack of judgement, disrespect for the Duke, and boldness), and described the miserable and deprived conditions which prevented him from studying and writing. Nonetheless, it also appears that he experienced periods of tranquillity in between periods of relapse and fatigue that often coincided with the confusion and visions described in his letters. In his more purposive moments, for example in the period immediately following his arrest, again in 1581 and at the beginning of 1585, his output of dialogues, encomiastic lyrics and especially letters were his means of communication with the outside world, tools expertly used by the most talented poet and literary figure of the time to reconstruct his image for the outside world.