During his lifetime, and also later, thanks to Pier Vettori’s posthumous editions of his work, Monsignor Giovanni Della Casa (1503-1556) represented a refined and distinct literary model, differing to some extent from the prevailing Petrarchan model that Bembo had re-launched and canonized. Crucial in this were not so much his humanist work in annotating the classics, nor his moral treatises, including the Galateo and De officiis inter tenuiores et potentiores amicos, but his small collection of lyrical poems (published in Rime et Prose, Venice, 1558, although circulating earlier in manuscript form) that innovated the language of poetry from within, on the stylistic level. Tasso soon became aware of Della Casa’s originality, dedicating a splendid lecture at the academy to one of his sonnets (Questa vita mortal) and identifying him as a point of reference. Tasso also uses Della Casa in his Apologia in defence of the Liberata, and identifies him as an alternative to the moderni dicitori, an expression used by Tasso to indicate a generation of poets that indulged in endless repetition of the Petrarchan model, taking it to mannerist extremes.

Pontormo, Portrait of Giovanni Della Casa, Washington, National Gallery