Gerusalemme liberata (editions)

Tasso’s reputation, the deferral of his final version and the nature itself of the Roman revision resulted in many different manuscripts (and no definitive text), leading to an unusual editorial situation for the Gerusalemme liberate after Tasso had given up on publication. In 1579 in appendix to a collection of lyrical poems published in Genoa (Scelta di rime di diversi eccellenti poeti), canto IV appeared on its own, while in summer 1580 a rather incomplete version of the epic was printed in Venice, upon the initiative of Celio Malespini. In March 1581, Angelo Ingegneri published all twenty cantos for the first time (Parma, Viotti and Casalmaggiore, Canacci and Viotti). These editions all carried the title Gerusalemme liberata, rather than the Goffredo title that Tasso had had in mind for so long. Also in 1581, the Ferrarese gentleman Febo Bonnà arranged for two different editions (the first in June, with the Baldini Press, and the second in July with Eredi di Francesco De Rossi), in the very city where the poet, who continued to withhold authorization of publication, was locked up. The quick succession of editions suggests an astounding success, with the immediately appreciation of a vast public. In 1582, the Liberata was also printed in Naples, while reprints were being produced in Venice or Ferrara. The editions produced in the years that followed including the one in Mantua in May 1584, printed by Francesco Osanna, and long considered to have been supervised by Scipione Gonzaga, and therefore deriving from authoritative manuscripts. The modern text established by Lanfranco Caretti is based on the second printing by Bonnà in 1581, critically revised. A new text of the Liberata will need to take into account the work carried out by Luigi Poma (collected in L. Poma, Studi sul testo della Gerusalemme liberata, Bologna, Clueb, 2005).