Tasso was soon released, and taken by the duke his villa of Belriguardo.  Probably this excursion was designed to soothe the perturbed spirits of the poet.  But it may also have had a different object.  Alfonso may have judged it prudent to sift the information laid before him by Tasso’s enemies.  We do not know what passed between them.  Whether moral pressure was applied, resulting in the disclosure of secrets compromising Leonora d’Este, cannot now be ascertained; nor is it worth while to discuss the hypothesis that the Duke, in order to secure his family’s honor, imposed on Tasso the obligation of feigning madness.[29] There is a something not entirely elucidated, a sediment of mystery in Tasso’s fate, after this visit to Belriguardo, which criticism will not neglect to notice, but which no testing, no clarifying process of study, has hitherto explained.  All we can rely upon for certain is that Alfonso sent him back to Ferrara to be treated physically and spiritually for derangement; and that Tasso thought his life was in danger.  He took up his abode in the Convent of S. Francis, submitted to be purged, and began writing eloquent letters to his friends and patrons.

[Footnote 28:  Lettere, vol. i. p. 228.]

[Footnote 29:  This is Rosini’s hypothesis in the Essay cited above.  The whole of his elaborate and ingenious theory rests upon the supposition that Alfonso at Belriguardo extorted from Tasso an acknowledgment of his liaison Leonora, and spared his life on the condition of his playing a fool’s part before the world.  But we have no evidence whatever adequate to support the supposition.]

Those which he addressed to the Duke of Ferrara at this crisis, weigh naturally heaviest in the scale of criticism.[30] They turn upon his dread of the Inquisition, his fear of poison, and his diplomatic practice with Florence.  While admitting ‘faults of grave importance’ and ‘vacillation in the service of his prince,’ he maintains that his secret foes have exaggerated these offenses, and have succeeded in prejudicing the magnanimous and clement spirit of Alfonso.  He is particularly anxious about the charge of heresy.  Nothing indicates that any guilt of greater moment weighed upon his conscience.[31] After scrutinizing all accessible sources of information, we are thus driven to accept the prosaic hypothesis that Tasso was deranged, and that his Court-rivals had availed themselves of a favorable opportunity for making the duke sensible of his insanity.

After the middle of July, the Convent of S. Francis became intolerable to Tasso.  His malady had assumed the form of a multiplex fear, which never afterwards relaxed its hold on his imagination.  The Inquisition, the duke, the multitude of secret enemies plotting murder, haunted him day and night like furies.  He escaped, and made his way, disguised in a peasant’s costume, avoiding cities, harboring in mountain hamlets, to Sorrento.