In his final years, Tasso produced two short compositions belonging to the genre of poetry of mourning which in the second half of the sixteenth century had produced Tansillo’s masterpiece the Lagrime di San Pietro del Tansillo, Tasso’s compositions were entitled Lagrime della Beata Vergine and Lagrime di Cristo, respectively of 25 and 20 octave stanzas. In the first edition of the Lagrime which appeared in Rome in 1593, the printer describes the theme of Tasso’s work: “The opportunity for Mr Torquato Tasso to compose these first twenty-five octave stanzas was provided by a painting of Our Lady that Mr Cinzio Aldobrandini keeps with much reverence in his room” (translated from T. Tasso, Opere, edited by B. Maier, vol. IV, Milan, Rizzoli, 1964, 411). In this work, as in the other instances of the period (for example by Tasso’s friend Angelo Grillo), the poetry of mourning is an anguished lament on the frailty of the human condition, submerged in danger and sin, features that are characteristic of parts of Tasso’s sacred verse and found at many points also of his Mondo creato.

Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), Christ Presented to the People (Ecce Homo), New York, Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art