In 1557, when he had just turned twelve, Torquato moved to Urbino to join his father at the Palazzo dell’Imperiale. Here he made friends with, and for a while studied alongside, Francesco Maria della Rovere, heir to the Duke Guidubaldo. In the months spent between Pesaro and the Urbino Court, Tassino (as he was called in order to avoid confusion between him and his father Bernardo) proved himself to be extraordinarily precocious, and committed to studying the classical authors, Latin and Greek (a language which he did not learn to any great depth however). He also made the acquaintance of literary figures who guided his early education in contemporary culture, such as Girolamo Muzio, Bernardo Cappello and Dionigi Atanagi. This last was also called to the court of Urbino to help Bernardo revise his Amadigi. Perhaps even more important is Torquato’s service in the elegant and refined Della Rovere court, which a few decades earlier had inspired Baldassar Castiglione to write the Cortegiano. Through contact with the young prince, and the importance granted to him by his father’s friends, the young Tasso thus experienced for himself the habits and conventions of a world, that of the court, which was to affect his whole life and literary activities.

Titian, Venus of Urbino, Florence, Uffizi Gallery