Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso, (1544-95). Italian Renaissance poet. From the 1560s onwards he wrote epic, lyric, and pastoral poetry mainly under the patronage of the Este family. Gerusalemme liberata, his masterpiece, was completed in 1574 but not published until 1581. Tasso later suffered from mental illness (1579-86) but continued to write poetry and prose works during his confinement in an asylum.