[Footnote 20:  Lettere, vol. iii. p. 164, v. p. 6.]

[Footnote 21:  Ib. vol. iii. pp. 85, 86, 88, 163, iv. pp. 8, 166, v. p. 87.]

[Footnote 22:  Letter to Fabio Gonzaga in 1590 (vol. iv. p. 296).]

There were many reasons why Alfonso should resent Tasso’s entrance into other service at this moment.  The House of Este had treated him with uniform kindness.  The Cardinal, the duke and the princesses had severally marked him out by special tokens of esteem.  In return they expected from him the honors of his now immortal epic.  That he should desert them and transfer the dedication of the Gerusalemme to the Medici, would have been nothing short of an insult; for it was notorious that the Estensi and the Medici were bitter foes, not only on account of domestic disagreements and political jealousies, but also because of the dispute about precedence in their titles which had agitated Italian society for some time past.  In his impatience to leave Ferrara, Tasso cast prudence to the winds, and entered into negotiations with the Cardinal de’Medici in Rome.  When he traveled northwards at the beginning of 1576, he betook himself to Florence.  What passed between him and the Grand Duke is not apparent.  Yet he seems to have still further complicated his position by making political disclosures which were injurious to the Duke of Ferrara.  Nor did he gain anything by the offer of his services and his poem to Francesco de’Medici.  In a letter of February 4, 1576, the Grand Duke wrote that the Florentine visit of that fellow, ’whether to call him a mad or an amusing and astute spirit, I hardly know,’[23] had been throughout a ridiculous affair; and that nothing could be less convenient than his putting the Gerusalemme up to auction among princes.  One year later, he said bluntly that ’he did not want to have a madman at his Court.’[24] Thus Tasso, like his father, discovered that a noble poem, the product of his best pains, had but small substantial value.  It might, indeed, be worth something to the patron who paid a yearly exhibition to its author; but it was not a gem of such high price as to be wrangled for by dukes who had the cares of state upon their shoulders.  He compromised himself with the Estensi, and failed to secure a retreat in Florence.

[Footnote 23:  Lettere, vol. iii. p. viii.]

Meanwhile his enemies at Ferrara were not idle.  Pigna had died in the preceding November.  But Antonio Montecatino, who succeeded him as ducal secretary, proved even a more malicious foe, and poisoned Alfonso’s mind against the unfortunate poet.  The two princesses still remained his faithful friends, until Tasso’s own want of tact alienated the sympathies of Leonora.  When he returned in 1576, he found the beautiful Eleonora Sanvitale, Countess of Scandiano, at Court.  Whether he really fell in love with her at first sight, or pretended to do so in order to revive Leonora d’Este’s