Monte Oliveto

Leaving Rome in the spring of 1588, Tasso arrived in Naples in March, and stayed at the monastery of Monte Oliveto, thanks to the good offices of the Olivetan Abbot Niccolò degli Oddi, his friend and defender in the controversy with the Accademia della Crusca. He started on the revision of the Gerusalemme, enjoying the patronage of Matteo di Capua, Prince of Conca, and the support of the young Manso. During the summer, possibly to repay the monks for their generous hospitality, Tasso started a short poem entitled Monte Oliveto. A product of circumstances, the work was left incomplete after a hundred or so octave stanzas and was published in 1605, after Tasso’s death. (Il Montoliveto, Ferrara, Vittorio Baldini). The tension and interest in the sacred which he later expressed in Mondo Creato are nonetheless discernible, though the latter work was more ambitious and less bound by circumstances.