Torquato Tasso - La Gerusalemme Liberata - 1744

The Jerusalem Delivered, heroic poem by Torquato Tasso, At Prault, Paris, 1744, 2 volumes, 326 pp., 333 pp.

In-16°, full calf binding, long spine adorned with gold Arabesques, title and volume numbers gilded on a crimson title label and a dark brown spine label. The boards with a cold-pressed border. Chants underscored by a gold thread, decorated spandrels with a gold roulette. All edges red. Ex-libris glued on the upper guard. Bookmarks preserved.

Epidermises, losses and rubbing on the boards and spines. Spines rubbed, corners worn, with some losses. Slight cracking of the spine. Some wormholes.

Interior with some browning and damp-stains but very well preserved. Text perfectly legible.

Very fine copy.

Dimensions (cm): 14 x 8 x 2
Weight (kg): 0.352

Torquato Tasso was born in Sorrento on 11 March 1544. His major work, famous and translated into many languages, is The Jerusalem Delivered, which relates the clashes between Christians and Muslims during the First Crusade, culminating with the Christians’ capture of Jerusalem. He died in Rome on 25 April 1595.

The Jerusalem Delivered, (La Jérusalem délivrée) is an epic poem published in 1581 in Italian, recounting a largely fictional narrative of the first crusade, during which the Christian knights led by Godfrey of Bouillon fight the Saracens in order to lift the siege of Jerusalem in 1099. The poem is composed of stanzas of eight lines, grouped into twenty cantos of varying length.

The work belongs to the tradition of chivalric romance of the Renaissance, and of Italian epic poems. Torquato Tasso, called Le Tasse in French, frequently borrows elements of plot and characters from Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (known as L’Arioste). The poem also contains elements inspired by the epic tales of Homer and Virgil (particularly in sections describing sieges and war tactics). It is dedicated to Alphonse II d’Este, patron of the poet.