In addition to Dante and Petrarch, whose work he had studied in depth, the young Tasso read the early poets, namely the generations of poets preceding Dante that were read during the second half of the sixteenth century either in manuscript collections or in the printed version produced in Florence by Bardo Segni in 1527, the famous Giuntina di rime antiche (reprinted in 1532). From a passing mention in his Discorsi dell’arte poetica, it is clear that Tasso read this work early on, but he examined it more thoroughly in his later years, when the poems of authors such as Cavalcanti and Lapo Gianni were taken as a focus in discussions on metrical rules and as a source of poetic language. As regards metrical structure, in a dialogue entitled Cavaletta overo de la poesia toscana, Tasso scrutinized the norms of De vulgari eloquentia using texts from the Giuntina. As regards the second aspect, clear echoes of the early poets can be found in his later lyrical poems and the Gerusalemme Conquistata, where their function was to create a rare and complex poetic language, and thereby a loftier style. Valuable documentation regarding Tasso’s reading habits are provided by two different annotated volumes of the 1527 Giuntina, preserved respectively at Florence’s Biblioteca Nazionale and at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice (see E. Russo, “Tasso e gli antichi dicitori”, in Id., Studi su Tasso e Marino, Rome-Padua, Editrice Antenore, 2005).
The early poets
