Venice

Bernardo went to Venice at the end of 1558 to attend to the publication of the Amadigi with the city’s major press. Torquato followed him shortly afterwards, helping with corrections to the poem. At the same time as the Index of Forbidden Books was being prepared upon the instigation of Paolo IV Carafa, the courageous initiative of Venice’s Accademia della Fama was emerging, led by Federico Badoer, Francesco Patrizi, Domenico Venier and Paolo Manuzio, with Bernardo Tasso called upon to act as secretary. With its ambitious cultural and editorial project (which caused it to be suppressed shortly afterwards, in 1561), the Accademia promised, albeit somewhat generically, to support the young Torquato. More importantly, however, during these months he made acquaintance and developed friendships with literary figures such as Venier, Ruscelli, the young Aldo Manuzio, son of Paolo, and especially Patrizi, with whom Torquato was to enter into polemical debate in the mid-1580s over the Gerusalemme liberata. Torquato was not yet sixteen when he made his first attempt at epic poetry, which developed later into the Gierusalemme, his early work developing within the rich cultural context experienced in Venice and his familiarity with the literary climate as well as the influence of his father’s work (the Amadigi was printed in Venice in 1560).