Three objects attract the steps of the modern pilgrim in desolate grass-grown Ferrara; the house, distinguished by a tablet, in which Ariosto was born; the ancient castle in the centre of the town, in whose courtyard Ugo and Parasina, whom Byron has immortalised, were beheaded; and next door to the chief hotel—­the Europa—­and beside the post-office, the huge hospital of St. Anne, in which Tasso was confined.  This last object is by far the most interesting.  The sight of it is not needed to sadden one more than the deserted streets themselves do.  The dungeon, indicated by a long inscription over the door, is below the ground-floor of the hospital; it is twelve feet long, nine feet wide, and seven feet high, and the light penetrates through its grated windows from a small yard.  By several authors, including Goethe, considerable doubts have been expressed regarding the authenticity of this cell; and certainly the present features of the place are not confirmatory of the tradition.  This doubt, however, has not prevented relic-hunters—­among whom Shelley may be included—­from carrying off in small fragments the whole of the bedstead that once stood there, as well as cutting off large pieces from the door which still survives.  Lamartine wrote in pencil some poetical lines upon the wall; and Byron, with his intense realism, caused himself to be locked for an hour in it, that he might be able to form some idea of the sufferings which he recorded in his Lament of Tasso.

Less than sixty years ago the insane were treated with the utmost inhumanity as accursed of God; and the asylums in which they were shut up were dismal prisons, where the unfortunate inmates were left in a state of the utmost filth, or were chained and lashed at the caprice of savage keepers.  The madhouse which Hogarth drew will aid us in forming a conception of an Italian asylum in the sixteenth century, which was much worse than anything known in our country.  The other inmates of the hospital of St. Anne suffered much doubtless; but they were really mad, and were therefore unconscious of their misery.  But that alleviation was wanting in the case of Tasso.  He was sane and conscious, and his sanity intensified the horror of his situation, “enabling him to gauge with fearful accuracy the depths of the abyss into which he had fallen.”  One glimpse of him is given to us by Montaigne, who visited the cell, where it seems the unfortunate inmate was made a show of to all whom curiosity or pity attracted to the hospital.  “I had even more indignation than compassion when I saw him at Ferrara in so piteous a state—­a living shadow of himself.”  His jailer was Agostino Mosti, who, although he was himself a man of letters, and therefore should have sympathised with Tasso, on the contrary carried out to the utmost the cruel commands of his prince, and by his harsh language and unceasing vigilance immensely aggravated the sufferings of his victim.  This inhuman persecution was caused by Mosti’s jealously of Tasso as the rival of his beloved master Ariosto, to whom at his own cost he had erected a monument in the church of the Benedictines at Ferrara.