Immersed in books from an early age, Tasso read, assimilated and wrote notes on the pages themselves, but never created his own library. His constant and restless moves from place to place, before and after his confinement at Sant’Anna, meant that his books were left here and there with friends and later reclaimed, with only partial success. His collection can be reconstructed at least partially through direct citations, and the requests and loans mentioned in his epistolary (see G. Baldassarri, “La prosa del Tasso e l’universo del sapere”, in Torquato Tasso e la cultura estense, edited by G. Venturi, 3 vols, Florence, Olschki, 1999, vol. II, 361-409). Few actual books have been preserved, however, with Tasso’s copious notes. This limited collection nonetheless provides a valuable testimony of the cultural background he accumulated through the years, and a method of reading which is particularly helpful in interpreting Tasso’s own work, which often developed directly from his annotations in the margins of the books he owned, particularly in the case of the Dialoghi. The most substantial collection of Tasso’s books is now preserved in the Barberini Collection of the Vatican Apostolic Library (see A. M. Carini, “I postillati barberiniani del Tasso”, in Studi tassiani, XII, 98-110), but other annotations are preserved in the major libraries in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. While certain fundamental texts are still missing, such as Tasso’s copy of the Bible and works by Virgil, those that are available constitute one of the most important collections in Italian literature of books owned by an author, on a par with the Petrarchan precedent.
Annotations
