[Footnote 40:  Lettere, ibid. p. 289.]

[Footnote 41:  Lettere, ibid. p. 233.]

The sequestration of his only copy of the Gerusalemme not unnaturally caused him much distress; and Veniero adds that the chief difficulty under which he labored was want of money.  Veniero hardly understood the case.  Even with a competence it is incredible that Tasso would have been contented to work quietly at literature in a private position.[42] From Venice he found his way southward to Urbino, writing one of his sublimest odes upon the road from Pesaro.[43]

[Footnote 42:  Tasso declares his inability to live outside the Court.  ’Se fra i mali de l’animo, uno de’piu gravi e l’ambizione, egli ammalo di questo male gia molti anni sono, ne mai e risanato in modo ch’io abbia potuto sprezzare affatto i favori e gli onori del mondo, e chi puo dargli’ (Lettere, vol. iii. p. 56).  ’Io non posso acquetarmi in altra fortuna di quella ne la quale gia nacqui’ (Ibid. p. 243).]

[Footnote 43:  It is addressed to the Metaurus, and begins:  ’O del grand, Apennino.’]

Francesco Maria della Rovere received him with accustomed kindness; but the spirit of unrest drove him forth again, and after two months we find him once more, an indigent and homeless pedestrian, upon the banks of the Sesia.  He wanted to reach Vercelli, but the river was in flood, and he owed a night’s lodging to the chance courtesy of a young nobleman.  Among the many picturesque episodes in Tasso’s wanderings none is more idyllically beautiful than the tale of his meeting with this handsome youth.  He has told it himself in the exordium to his Dialogue Il Padre di Famiglia.  When asked who he was and whither he was going, he answered:  ’I was born in the realm of Naples, and my mother was a Neapolitan; but I draw my paternal blood from Bergamo, a Lombard city.  My name and surname I pass in silence:  they are so obscure that if I uttered them, you would know neither more nor less of my condition.  I am flying from the anger of a prince and fortune.  My destination is the state of Savoy.’  Upon this pilgrimage Tasso chose the sobriquet of Omero Fuggiguerra.  Arriving at Turin, he was refused entrance by the guardians of the gate.  The rags upon his back made them suspect he was a vagabond infected with the plague.  A friend who knew him, Angelo Ingegneri, happened to pass by, and guaranteed his respectability.  Manso compares the journey of this penniless and haggard fugitive through the cities of Italy to the meteoric passage of a comet.[44] Wherever he appeared, he blazed with momentary splendor.  Nor was Turin slow to hail the lustrous apparition.  The Marchese Filippo da Este entertained him in his palace.  The Archbishop, Girolamo della Rovere, begged the honor of his company.  The Duke of Savoy, Carlo Emanuele, offered him the same appointments as he had enjoyed at Ferrara.  Nothing, however, would content his morbid spirit.