Tasso's last years in Rome

No longer under the patronage and control of the Gonzaga family, Tasso saw Rome as a constant point of reference during his last years, when the various possibilities of settling elsewhere, whether in Florence, Naples or Mantua, came to nothing. Fascinated by the urban development of Sixtus V, and under the patronage first of Scipione Gonzaga and later of the Aldobrandini family, aided also by various members of the Orsini family, he spent long periods in Rome: from the end of 1588 to March 1590, from September 1590 to the following February and again from December 1591 until his death, with a couple of periods spent in Naples in 1592 and 1594. He never succeeded in overcoming his restlessness, namely, he persisted in his attempts to find an advantageous position and achieve recognition in terms of the honours and material benefits he felt he had been denied. Hence the tone of discontent throughout his letters, and the complaints and misunderstandings of the months and years he spent obstinately revising his poem and writing his Mondo creato. In this phase of Tasso’s life, papal Rome had a powerful impact, as indicated by his theological reading and sacred poems. In his writing, Rome now replaced the Courts of the North as his horizon of reference. In what were years of crisis for Italy’s ruling families (the devolution turning Ferrara into a Papal State took place in 1597), the majestic solemnity of Rome during the time of Sixtus V and Clement VIII, rooted in and transposed into a vision of the afterlife, was all that remained of the former greatness of the Empire.