Allegoria to the Gerusalemme liberata
On 15 June 1576, Tasso wrote to Scipione Gonzaga openly declaring that he had written the Gerusalemme without any allegorical intentions: “Io, per confessare a Vostra Signoria Illustrissima ingenuamente il vero, quando cominciai il mio poema non ebbi pensiero alcuno d’allegoria, parendomi soverchia e vana fatica”.
Gerusalemme without any allegorical intentions: “To be perfectly truthful towards Your Illustrious Lordship, when I begam my poem I had no thought of allegory in mind, for that seemed to me a burdensome and pointless exercise” (translated from T. Tasso, Lettere poetiche, edited by C. Molinari, Parma, Guanda, Fondazione Pietro Bembo, 1995, 456).
The need to defend his work against suspicions and criticisms, especially those of Silvio Antoniano, motivated Tasso to prepare a draft of the Allegoria to his epic in spring 1576. He sent it to Scipione Gonzaga with the following comment:
Lessi già tutte l’opere di Platone e [...] questo so bene, che la dottrina morale della quale io mi son servito nell’allegoria è tutta sua; ma in guisa è sua ch’insieme è d’Aristotele: et io mi sono sforzato d’accoppiare l’uno e l’altro vero, in modo che ne riesca consonanza fra le opinioni.
“I have read all of Plato’s works and [...] am perfectly aware that the moral doctrine I have used in my allegory is wholly his; but what appears as his is also Aristotle’s: and I have made the effort to couple both truly, in such a way as to ensure consonance between the opinions” (translated from T. Tasso, Lettere poetiche, edited by C. Molinari, Parma, Guanda, Fondazione Pietro Bembo, 1995, 460).
Moral doctrine was intended to legitimize mixing, under the veil of allegory, the sacred content of the Crusade with the “profane” parts of the text, namely the love affairs of the heroes and the many “enchantments”, under the veil of allegory. It thus provided a protective barrier against criticisms concerning the behaviour of the epic’s protagonists. Significantly, Tasso recalled how Homer, criticized by Plato in both Republic and Laws, had used allegory in his defence. An ancient tool such as allegory could thus defend Armida’s love story and the “errors” of the Crusade’s heroes, guaranteeing the ingredient of “variety” that Tasso knew to be fundamental for success among readers.
