In Florence, 1590

Fifteen years after initiating the practices deployed in revising his poem, Tasso arrived in Florence and was warmly received not only by the Grand Duke Ferdinand but also by local literary figures, now that the controversy of a few years earlier, when his Gerusalemme was harshly criticized by the Crusca Academicians, had died down. Tasso had prepared his entry to court carefully, having written in April 1589 an Orazione in lode della Serenissima casa dei Medici, which retraced the glories of the dynasty, especially those of the sixteenth century. Moreover, he had also dedicated one of his dialogues to the Grand Duke, Il Costante overo de la clemenza, in which – as was natural from the perspective of a tired writer in search of patronage - mercy and generosity are presented as essential virtues for a good prince. His time in Florence is also connected with a series of lyrical poems (Rime, 1477-83) again celebrating the Medici family (some dedicated to the birth of the future Cosimo II). He also showed his usual signals of restlessness, which his contemporaries considered a “rather sorry state of mind”. After the death of Sixtus V, Tasso set his hopes upon a new conclave and left Florence in August 1590 for Rome.