The Italian poet Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), author of "Gerusalemme liberata," the greatest epic poem written in Italian, was the finest poet of his time.

Torquato Tasso born on March 11, 1544, was the son of Bernardo Tasso, a member of the Bergamasque nobility and the author of Amadigi, a retelling of the Spanish poem Amadis de Gaula. Torquato received his first instruction from a priest in his native Sorrento. When he was 8 years old, he entered a Jesuit school in Naples. Within 2 years he had made great progress in Latin and Greek. In 1554 he left his mother--who died 2 years later without the boy's seeing her again--to join his father in Rome. As secretary to the prince of Salerno, Ferrante Sanseverino, the elder Tasso had followed the prince into exile and poverty.

Torquato's early religious instruction and separation from his mother left indelible marks on his personality. Another lasting influence was...