The Italian Cultural Institute of Washington, in collaboration with the Department of Italian Studies of Georgetown University, presents “Torquato Tasso and Female Patrons: A New Reading History“, a talk by Dr. Kate Driscoll.
Torquato Tasso (1544–1595), Italy’s finest poet at the twilight of the Renaissance, has long been cast as a solitary figure. Romantic visualizations of Tasso’s years at the Este court of Ferrara repeatedly depict him as withdrawn and enclosed, confined by order of Duke Alfonso II and sealed into a legacy of neglect and abandonment. But how accurate is this history, and whose presence has it obscured?
