Giovan Battista Manso

Giovan Battista Manso was born in Naples in 1569 and developed a career in the army alongside a passion for literature. His interest in literary matters led him at a young age to the Accademia degli Svegliati which had formed around Giulio Cortese, together with outstanding men of letters such as Tommaso Costo, Ascanio Pignatelli and the young Marino. He met Tasso in 1588, establishing a deep friendship which was consolidated through the support offered to Tasso during the periods spent in Naples. Tasso celebrated their friendship by dedicating to Manso one of his last dialogues, dealing with friendship. After Tasso’s death, Manso maintained his political and military and diplomatic commitments under the Spanish viceroyalty together with a literary output modelled on Tasso (such as his philosophical dialogues entitled Erocallia) but sensitive also to the newer influences deriving from Marino, which led to the Accademia degli Oziosi, promoted by Manso and supported by the Spanish authorities (in 1624, this Accademia triumphantly celebrated Marino on his return from France). In 1621, Manso’s Vita di Torquato Tasso was published. Long in the making, it is the most important and famous of Manso’s works, the first important biography of Tasso, although it contains a number of improbable accounts as well as its author’s clear wish to promote himself. In the following years, he wrote a series of other works (Poesie nomiche, 1635), and in 1638 met Milton, transmitting his testimony of Tasso and Marino. He died in 1645.