>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

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>> Grant Harris: Good afternoon and welcome to the Library of Congress. I am Grant Harris. I am chief of the European Division. We are glad you are here for this event entitled "Words, Images, and Music: A Dialogue on Torquato Tasso and the Arts" at the Library of Congress. We sponsor this event in partnership with the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute here in Washington. Within the Library of Congress, the European Division is co-sponsoring with the Music Division and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, both of which have provided really interesting treasures that we were able to show between 2:00 and 3:00 today. We wish we could keep them longer, but they have to get back to their divisions. Also co-sponsoring with us is the Library's John W. Kluge Center, which is just in the rooms next door here. They've graciously let us use this room. We would also like to thank our wonderful speakers, Dr. Laura Benedetti of Georgetown University, who is originally from the Abruzzo Region in Italy, in central Italy. And Dr. Peter Lukehart of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, a well-known art historian both in D.C. and abroad. Today's event celebrates the birth of the Italian Renaissance author Torquato Tasso, who was born on March 11 in 1544 in the town of Sorrento on the Gulf of Naples. He was the author of the epic poem-- and I'm saying this in English because I don't have the Italian for this or was this in Latin when it was first written? In Italian, okay. "Jerusalem Delivered," that's one of the renderings in English. That's not the only rendering, but "Jerusalem Delivered." Published in 1581, a work based on the history of the First Crusade. The Library's collections hold at least 760 items in various formats concerning Torquato Tasso, and a good number are English translations of his main works, published in Britain and in the United States. We hope you have a pleasant time at the library today, and please come back to use the collections. The collections really are rich. The Italian collections are really incredible here. Please turn off your cell phones and recording devices for the duration of the program. Be aware that this is being recorded as a Library of Congress webcast. It's not live streaming, but someday, many weeks from now, it will be made available on our webpages. And I now give the floor to our specialist for Italy, Lucia Wolf, who has organized this event today. It's got lots of moving parts with all the great items that we were able to show earlier. Let me say also that some people have asked if those items will be on display in some way in the future. And there will be at least a list and Lucia, I'll let you talk about this, and you'll mention that when you're up here, okay? Well, thank you for being here. I give you Lucia Wolf.

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[ Applause ]

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>> Lucia Wolf: So I won't be long because they are the protagonists. [laughter] And I'll cut to the chase. I had a longer, but thank you for being here for this wonderful occasion. I thought hosting an event to celebrate Torquato Tasso's birth month would be as good as any other occasion to introduce one of the greatest Italian Renaissance writers in our Italian program repertoire at the Library of Congress. And I will mention what Grant was referring to at the end, but before going any further, I want to thank all my colleagues who have made this event possible and have beared with me during the preparation of this event. You all know who you are. And most importantly, I would like to thank the chief of the European Division, Grant Harris. Finally, I want to thank my husband. Maybe he's here. Okay. But -- [laughter] That's okay. He put up with a lot of long extra hours of work, so I decided to say thank you to him. I will not go over the Library's collections too much, because Grant has said most of what we needed to know today about the holdings for Torquato Tasso. But I would like to point out that there are more than 400,000 items in our Italian collections, and they are growing at the rate of 6,000 new acquisitions per year. So it is a very, very large collection. If you are interested in learning more about the Italian collections, please pick up a card, my business cards. Leave an e-mail if you prefer and don't hesitate to contact me, and I will give you the best orientation I can. [laughing] I'm still exploring the collections. I mean 400,000 items are quite a few. We will do many programs to allow for that also. These are occasions for me, by the way, to really discover the collections and share what the bounty we have with you. So let us move on to our speakers, because we had a few logistical -- [laughing] problems and technical that took up some time, and we want to give them all the time possible. Dr. Laura Benedetti has taught and currently teaches Italian literature at Georgetown University. She holds a summa cum laude from the University of Rome La Sapienza, a masters from the University of Alberta, a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She taught for eight years at Harvard, where she become the John Loeb -- I pronounce it like -- yep -- Associate Professor for the Humanities before joining Georgetown as the first Laura and Gaetano De Sole Professor of Contemporary Italian Culture. Her publications include "La sconfitta Di Diana, un percorso per la Gerusalemme liberata," "The Tigress in the Snow: Motherhood and Literature in 20th Century Italy," the edition and English translation of Lucrezia Marinella's "Esortazioni alle donne e agli altri," and most recently, her first novel, "Un paese di carta," about which we had a very vivacious talk here at the Library last September. And if you want to enjoy it, you can go and watch the webcast. It's posted online. So let's move forward. She has been a guest of honor at annual meetings of the American Association of Italian Studies, as well as the recipient of the Flaiano International Prize for Italian Studies. She has also been awarded the Wise Woman Award for the National Organization of Italian American Women, and the gold medal from Federazione Associazioni Abruzzesi nele usa. She is currently associate editor and book review editor of Italian culture at the Journal of the American Association of Italian Studies. And if you want to consult Dr. Benedetti's books, we have most of them -- I think all of them -- here at the Library. Our next guest, Dr. Peter Lukehart, is Associate Dean at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art from 2001 to the present, where he has a special responsibility for the fellowship program. He received his Ph.D. in Art History from the Johns Hopkins University. From 1988 to 1990, he taught at George Mason University, another alma mater of mine. [laughing] And then served as a Mellon assistant curator of the Southern Baroque Painting at the National Gallery of Art from 1990 to 1992. From 1992 until 2001, he held a joint appointment at Dickenson College, where he was director of the college's museum, the Trout Gallery, and also assistant and then associate professor of art history. In 2000, Lukehart organized the exhibition and related website "Writing on Hands: Memory and Knowledge in Early Modern Europe," which won the Dibner Award in the History of Science. He has a longstanding interest the education and incorporation of artists in the early modern period. His publications on this subject include contributions to the exhibition catalogue "Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist-Brothers in Renaissance Rome" and to The Artist's Workshop, published under his editorship in the Studies in the History of Art series at the National Gallery of Art. He also served as editor of the Accademia Seminars, for which he wrote the introduction and essay "Visions and Divisions in the Early History of the Accademia di San Luca." He is project director for an online research database entitled "The History of the Accademia di San Luca from 1590 to 1635: Documents from Archivio di Stato di Roma." And please go and visit because it is beautiful, it is amazing. I went there and I have fond memories of Accademia di--

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: It will soon grow to 1665. [laughter]

>> Lucia Wolf: Wonderful. [laughter] I loved going there. In 2015, he contributed an essay entitled "The Practice and Pedagogy of Drawing in the Accademia di San Luca" to the volume -- I do not really speak German, but Lernt Zeichnen! Techniken zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Beautiful.

>> Lucia Wolf: Okay. Did I do okay? [laughter] The editors are Maria Heilmann, Nino Nanobashvili, Ulrich Pfisterer, and Tobias Teutenberg for the exhibition at the University of Heidelberg. And I think I got to the end. I wanted everybody to know what wonderful speakers we have here today, and this is really a rare occasion at the Library of Congress. Please enjoy.

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[ Applause ]

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>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Thank you very much, Lucia, for your kind introduction and for all of your hard work to make this event possible. And thanks -- I also want to extend my thanks to all our sponsors. I also want to of course thank Peter Lukehart, who was a brilliant partner in this adventure. And I also want to remember Alberto Manai, the former director of the Italian Cultural Institute, who first introduced us to one another and who was a very strong supporter of this kind of collaboration. And of course, thank you to all of you for deciding to spend this Friday afternoon with us. Thank you. I'm particularly pleased to see some of my students here. I know how hard it is to leave our campus. [laughter] So thank you, I appreciate your being here. And I recommend to all of you to get close to the screens, because the screens are not very big and we are going to be -- I will be quoting passages. Peter will be going through the details of some images. So please find a good spot. This is a dialogue between literature and the arts, so Peter and I thought it would be very appropriate that our presentations themselves were a dialogue. So instead of having two separate presentations, we had one single presentation and we'll go back and forth discussing features and episodes of "Jerusalem Delivered." We also thought that, unfortunately, Tasso doesn't quite enjoy the same name recognition as some other Italian writers such as Dante or Machiavelli, so we thought to make this event accessible to anybody interested in the subject matter, regardless of their previous exposure to the poet. Anyway, chances are that if you go to museums or if you enjoy music, chances are you have indeed been exposed to Tasso. A few years ago, a journalist from the Washington Post, Philip Kennicott wrote a very beautiful article on "Torquato Tasso, a Poet Both Obscure and Ubiquitous." And he said precisely, if you had been to a museum or to a concert of Italian madrigals, you know Tasso's characters well, even if you had never heard of the poet whose former fame is as astonishing as his current oblivion. [laughter] And to give you an amusing example, I think, of this phenomenon, I chose a brochure that the Baltimore Museum of Art created to illustrate one of its masterpieces from the Rinaldo and Armida. The Baltimore Museum of Art put together a brochure to foster appreciation of art in children, and so the children recognize the various characters. And there, at the bottom, you can see it says that the painting was inspired by a poem that was popular in the 1600s. It tells the story from the time of the Crusades. Well, that poem is precisely the "Gerusalemme liberata," or "Jerusalem Delivered," Tasso's masterpiece. So there you have it, Tasso is surreptitiously entering the minds of innocent children visiting the Baltimore Museum of Art. [laughter] Anyway, it is kind of ironic that Tasso would be remembered mainly for beautiful love episodes, such as Rinaldo and Armida because that is precisely what they wanted to avoid. [laughter] In fact, Tasso wrote after the rediscovery of Aristotle's poetics, when the idea of the unity of the time and space that Aristotle had described in Greek tragedy had become essential, even in the making of [inaudible] poem. And so Tasso wrote that his poem not only had unity of [inaudible] is the story of the First Crusade, but also unity of agent, he said. There is one main character, the Christian [inaudible] with Goffredo at its head and Rinaldo as it's right. So essentially this is what "Jerusalem Delivered" is, is a poem about the story of -- it's a fictional account of the First Crusade. So there's a very strong tension towards the goal. The first [inaudible] and again, perhaps if you want to come a little closer to the screen, the first octet of the second line mentions the great tomb of the Savior, so the final goal of the mission, and the epilogue -- [pause] -- sorry. I'll be using Anthony Esolen's beautiful translation throughout the presentation. And the epilogue also mentions the very last line of the great tomb. So Jerusalem is the goal. Jerusalem as both a concrete place, a city, but also the promise of civil happiness and a symbol of eternal bliss. So not an easy thing to capture when painters tried to give the representation of this idea.

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>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Thank you. Okay. Well, before I begin my remarks, I wanted to say a very warm and deep thanks are necessary for Lucia Wolf who helped to organize this event, and to my partner Laura. This is, in a lot of ways, a dream come true, to be able to work with a dear colleague who knows so much about Tasso. In the first glimpse of Jerusalem and Bernardo Castellos' illustrations for the 1590 Bartoli edition, we see a bustling port with anachronistic ships. In the second canto, Castellos represents Jerusalem as a kind of medieval walled city, more in keeping with the hill towns of Italy than anything in the Holy Land. He is consistent, however, in always depicting a centrally planned church that must stand for the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is no longer free-standing as it was and as is often depicted here in a 16th century hand-colored engraving. But rather, it's now enmeshed in the walls of previous and subsequent periods of building. What Castello has more accurately communicated is that Jerusalem is a walled city and that the Holy sepulchre is a polygonal temple surmounted by a large dome. And we'll see that over and over again. Similarly, the trees and plantings in the surrounding landscapes are not palms, acacias, cypresses, and cedars, but the deciduous varieties found in Europe. This holds true for Castello's contemporaries, such as Sisto Badalocchio, here in a scene from "Erminia." We'll come back to this later, but I wanted to emphasize here that whereas Castello indicates a pastoral scene with the simplest of elements, a rustic wooden fence with a clear view of Jerusalem behind. Guercino provides instead a vast landscape, quite apart from the city, with all manner of flora and fauna. Again, of a type found more in Italy than the Holy Land.

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>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Beautiful. Well, the road to Jerusalem is long though, and if we read that first stanza more closely, we realize that there is a problem. There is the effort that Goffredo, the leader, has to make in order to bring together his compagni errare, or wandering companions or straying men. Errare is a very powerful word in Italian that conveys two notions that I'll express by two different verbs in English. Errare means both to wander, to roam, but also to be mistaken, to be wrong, to err. So in other words, a special deviation from the path that leads to Jerusalem entails a more perversion. But there is more. Not only were Goffredo's companions wandering off, but also the narrator presents himself as a "peregrino errante," so a wanderer gone astray. And I would say not only the characters and the narrator are always on the verge of losing the right path, but the poem itself, that it seems on the verge of becoming a different kind of poem, a love poem, according to Tasso. And this becomes already very clear in the first episode we're going to discuss, the episode called "Olindo and Sofronia." The story is quite complex, so I'm going to try resume it in a few words. Aladine, the terrible ruler of Jerusalem, suspects that the Christians have stolen a sacred image and threatens to kill them all. Sofronia, a very modest Christian woman, accuses herself of the test in order to spare the other Christians. So she's sent to the stake, and this is a very important detail for our purposes, her veil is taken away from her. But at this point, Olindo, who has been secretly loving Sofronia, accuses himself of the offense, at which point Aladine gets really mad and says, well, then I'm going to kill both of them. So they are taken to the stake and they are tied back to back, at which point, Olindo starts this lament. And I hope you can read the translation. I'll read the Italian.

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[ Reading in Italian ]

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There are already so many characteristics of Tasso's poetry in this passage. First, I'll say the Baroque tendency to turn the metaphorical into the literal. So the bonds that Olindo hoped would tie him and Sofronia -- the metaphorical bonds of love -- are turned into the very harsh ropes that are literally tying them together. The fire that Olindo hoped would enflame both hearts turns into the very real fire that is about to kill both of them. So there is that. There is also Olindo's frustrated eroticism, which I think is very clear in the last passage I read. And there is Tasso's passion for contrast and opposition. In fact, Sofronia, when Sofronia speaks, he uses a completely -- she -- she uses a completely different tone, and basically tells Olindo to stop thinking about lips and breasts and all of that. [laughter] And to repent and turn his heart over to eternal life that they are about to achieve. And I would say also that this is an example, this episode is an example of Tasso's musical sensibility. Because you really can imagine this on a stage or as an opera. Because first, you have Olindo, the lad broke his sorrows in this cry, so a very high voice. And Sofronia, who replies tenderly with words of good advice. And then you have the choir that joins in, but even the choir is divided into groups. You have the Muslims, here the crowd of pagans raised a cry, so they are very moved by the fate of the two lovers, or the two martyrs almost. And the Christians were a little afraid by the difficult situation, so they quietly and low, the Christians wept. So even there, you have two different tombs. And finally, you even have the effect of the audience. A something, who can say what, unusual, soft, into the hard heart of their ruler crept. "Un non so che d'inusitato," who can say what. Je ne sais pas quoi, which is really Torquato Tasso's trademark, and is a really very prominent in this passage. I should say, I should add that the episode has a happy ending because Clorinda, the Muslim warrior woman, arrives and she senses, she understands that Olindo and Sofronia are innocent. She convinces Aladine to release them. And so the two can get married, which is excellent for Olindo, not so great for Sofronia. [laughter] In fact, the last line says she will not scorn to spend her life with Olindo, which is not exactly, you know, a warm [inaudible]. [laughter]

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Well, we'll see the way that the artists interpret this. [laughter] I think they warm her up.

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[ Laughter ]

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>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Oh, yeah, you're right.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Okay. So this scene provides, in a nutshell, the principle themes of "Jerusalem Iiberata," but the Christian maiden, Sofronia, and the Christian soldier, Olinda, who loves her, have sacrificed themselves. Sofronia, in order to protect her people from Aladino's wrath, and Olindo in order to protect his paramour. The leader of the Muslim forces, Aladino, instead orders, as we've just heard, both of them to be burned at the stake. And just at the moment when the fires are lit and all seems lost, Clorinda, the fearless Muslim warrior -- and I'm going to be using the word Muslim because I don't want to have quite the sense of antagonism that is inherent in Tasso himself. I don't want to start range wars over that. [laughter] In any case, so that's my vocabulary. And she will intervene and spares them. In the earliest illustrated edition by Bernardo Castello, and here -- is Diane DeGrazia still here? I'm going to just make a shout-out to her. She was one of my earliest mentors and knows so much about these prints, and I still go back to her work all the time for information about the prints of the Carracci. In any case, in this first edition that had engravings both by Giacomo Franco and Agostino Carracci. In this image preceding the second canto, Castello focuses on Goffredo and his troops and their encampment. By contrast, the scene of the near martyrdoms of Sofronia and Olindo is relegated to a small corner of the plaza. Do we see that? Let me see. It's not coming out. It's in the walled area. There's a very faint -- I'm sorry, kind of an oval around it. Can you see that in the upper right corner? That's how tiny it is, what's going on in the background. Okay? [laughter] One could easily overlook this section, and I did myself the first time I looked at it, which is shown here as a lesser episode within the greater narrative. If you look carefully, however, you see that Castello does in fact illustrate the very moment when Olindo and Sofronia are at the stake. The fire's lit and Clorinda appears in the nick of time. In the third canto, however, Castello chose instead to highlight the first violent encounter between Clorinda and Tancred. And you see her here with her shield over her head. She's a little bit to the left of center. So their first meeting in battle is here. As Laura has explained, Tasso describes the loss of Sofronia's veil and thus, of her defenses against the false charge of the theft of the icon. Most artists, from Castello to Cochin which was also in the little exhibition out here, shows Sofronia as modestly dressed, but lacking a veil. Thus, I was surprised to find the Neapolitan painter, Mattia Preti, depicted both Sofronia And Olindo completely nude here in the version at the Getty, and utterly humiliated and defenseless until Clorinda arrives majestically on her steed to interrupt the lighting of the pyre. A moment that could have ended in martyrdom and sacrifice turns instead to one of salvation. And rather than being consumed by the flames, as proto-martyrs to the cede of Jerusalem, Olindo and Sofronia will be free to enjoy the flames of passion. So I think maybe Olindo got his wish here at this time. [laughter] The sensual and emotional intensity of Preti's painting falls away in the print from Didot edition, illustrated by Cochin. And I'm putting them side by side, where the forlorn Olindo and Sofronia are fully dressed in what could be confused with 18th century pastoral shepherd costumes. [laughter]

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: This is all very beautiful, of course, but one may wonder whether an episode like this really should have a place in the Christian act that Tasso is trying to build. And when Tasso started circulating the manuscript, the readers were puzzled. They thought that the episode was introduced too early in the poem. It's only the second canto. They thought it did not have any link whatsoever with the main action. They thought it was too lyrical and too sensual, as we have seen. And they thought that the end and the happy conjugal ending was contrived. And so Tasso himself, in his letters, he goes back and forth between defending his creation and acknowledging its flaws and its limits. In the meantime, he becomes a little restless. Perhaps his mental health starts to disappear a bit. And for reasons that are not completely clear, he is imprisoned in an asylum. And here, you can see the rendering of Eugene Delacroix, "Tasso in the Asylum" from 1839. Tasso was imprisoned in 1579, and he will not regain his freedom until seven years later. And when it becomes clear that Tasso would stay in the asylum for a while, the people who had this manuscript decided to publish it against his will. And Tasso never endorsed any of the editions of "Jerusalem Delivered" that came out. In fact, for the rest of his life, he continued to work on the poem, trying to get his poem the shape that he really thought was fitted for a Christian epic. And in 1593, so two years before his death, he finally published "Jerusalem Conquered," "Gerusalemme conquistata." I'm making the English title up because it's never been translated into English. This, Tasso wrote, is the poem for which I want to be remembered. This is the heavenly Jerusalem, while "Jerusalem Delivered" is the earthly Jerusalem. And Tasso died in 1595, so only two years after the publication of "Gerusalemme conquistata." And perhaps he was spared the last insult, the realization that the poem for which he wanted to be remembered will never manage to replace "Jerusalem Delivered" in the hearts and the minds of this public. So the editorial history of "Jerusalem Delivered" is quite complex.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Thank you.

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Having fought with censors for years, as we've just learned, upon the reluctant publication of "Gerusalemme" in 1581, Tasso had a best seller on his hands. Not only was his epic poem immediately famous and printed in multiple editions, it had been published during his lifetime with various commentaries, and soon thereafter, with illustrations. It was analogous to getting a movie deal for an early modern author. The illustrated editions both acknowledged and expanded the author's renown. At the same time, Tasso's "Gerusalemme" become the subject of withering criticism from his contemporaries, most damningly from the members of the Academia della Crusca in Florence. I am illustrating here one of the books from the pro-Tasso camp by Lorenzo Giacomini, a member of the Academia degli Alterati. But even Galileo weighed in on this matter of the "Gerusalemme," but he was against Tasso. And yet this critical discussion, however unsettling to the poet, also served to trumpet his fame. We also witness the significance of Tasso's success in the jealousy of other poets, who hoped, usually vainly, to embark on a similar course toward fame. Tasso's contemporary, Gabriello Chiabrera, for example, wrote to the artist Bernardo Castello, who sent him a copy of the 1590 edition of the "Gerusalemme" that he had illustrated, as we've now been looking at many times, and expressed these co-mingled ideas. "For the gift of the "Gerusalemme," I offer infinite thanks, for I see in the book excellent figures of poetry and painting. I, who have great affection for Tasso, hold this book in my hands at every hour, thus at every hour, I will be in the presence of your affection and your genius. But about your compliments for my Amedeide, I thank you for the sweet inducement to write poetry. Nonetheless, I could not hope to accomplish it, nor even could I hope to achieve such honor, or more precisely, I could not accept it, being that I am, by nature, an enemy of presumption." Evidently, however, Chiabrera got over his aversion to presumption, for about a decade later, he wrote to Castello to ask for a frontispiece for the Amedeide. And to discuss, or can be surprised at all, the details for illustrations of his epic poem that was published in 1620. These anecdotes point to the fact that Tasso's "Gerusalemme" was a text believed by literatti and artists from the moment of its publication, second to an important cultural reality of the period. Poets and painters had occasion to correspond and relatedly that poets and painters took inspiration from one another. Further, the special relationships that existed between artists, including musicians, as we'll see, an poets, often result in some of the most interesting and influential collaborations in our shared culture. Such was the case for Castello, who was introduced to Tasso in 1576, after "Gerusalemme" had been completed as a text, but before it was ever published. In May 1586, Tasso wrote a letter that Castello had -- in his letter, that Castello had passed through Ferrara on his way back from Venice and left with him -- that is, with Tasso -- a series of drawings. We see some of Castello's drawings here. I'm not sure they were ever the same ones that were in Tasso's hands, but they're from the right period. Relating to my poem, as he said. Though it is doubtful, as I said, these are the exact drawings, they show that there's a cordial friendship between the artist and the poet. More importantly, these exchanges cemented the decision to have Castello's drawings included in a new luxury edition of the "Gerusalemme," published by Bartoli in 1590. We do not have detailed critical responses from Tasso, but in a letter from their mutual friend, Donangelo Grillo -- Angelo, that is, sorry. The poet spoke frankly about the process of co-creation. And I'm quoting here. "With regards to my book, I have not changed my opinion. It would not be necessary to change many of the figures by Castello, who is faster at creating the drawings than I am at dealing with them. Nonetheless, his drawing must be similar to the idea that I have envisioned for it." So he really wanted there to be some kind of consonances. I think this is an interesting kind of irony in the fact that he's simultaneously not wanting it to be published, but wanting to have his hands in whatever comes out, maybe a new story to be told later.

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>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Yes, yes.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Although there is a slight sense of reprimand in Tasso's statement because Castello is getting ahead of him, by and large, he liked the figures and the artist's conception of the scenes to be illustrated. The existence of these fragmentary notes suggest that Tasso and Castello conducted a frequent and candid correspondence, now lost. The above letter bespeaks an intimate collaboration between the poet and the artist that began in earnest around 1586 and continued at least through the publication in 1590. Furthermore, it points to the centrality of the Genoise literary and artistic culture in the publication of the early editions of Tasso. For it was in Genoa, too, that the physician illiterato, named Giulio Guastavini, wrote his anotatsioni, that is his commentaries on the "Gerusalemme," which helped to redirect the argument about Tasso's place in the literary pantheon from that of a rival to his contemporary ariosto, to that of a rival of the ancients, that of Homer and Virgil. Together, Castello, Guastavini, and the publisher, Bartoli, increased Tasso's fame throughout Europe. On a recent trip to Genoa, I had the opportunity to examine two examples of the first edition, one of which from canto quinto, has a little dingbat, and that's why the arrow is there. At the end you'll see in pen next to it. And so canto quinto and canto quinto are reversed. So this must be from one of the very earliest, earliest editions, before it was in its final form. And as we see here, the images are flipped. The sharp details and the rich ink of the advanced copy gives some sense of the original appearance of these illustrations. And it's just in pristine condition. I recommend your going there. Washington too, as you've seen in the exhibition, is fortunate to have an outstanding exemplar of the first edition in the Library of Congress' Rosenwald collection. In addition to the outstanding quality of the text and images, to which we will make frequent reference in the course of our dialogue, the Rosenwald edition is ruled throughout. I wanted you to see this. It's very interesting and I'd be happy to hear what people think about it. Close looking at the lines of the ruling and those of the text and prints suggest to me that they were intended as guides for the printing process. And if this is true, this would make the Rosenwald volume also one of the earliest in the succession of copies that proceeded the release of "Gerusalemme" to a reading public.

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^M00:40:32

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: In order to move from the earthly Jerusalem to the celestial, heavenly Jerusalem, Tasso was merciless in eliminating the episodes that had been very successful, but they did not correspond to his idea of the form. And so Olinda and Sofronia is one of those episodes, so in this [inaudible] just eliminated it from his poem. [laughter] Which is too bad, because also Sofronia is one of the very few Christian women in "Jerusalem Delivered." This is a striking feature of the poem. The two different sides are differentiated, not only in terms of religion, but also of gender. Apart from Sofronia in "Jerusalem Delivered," there is only another minor female character, Guilepe, was also led to the theme of marriage, and that's it. Apart from that, it's exclusively a male only. On the contrary, women are some of the most important characters on the Muslim side or the pagan side, as Tasso said, which creates a very strong attraction between the two groups, and many vital areas, many episodes in which the rules of love, the laws of love, prevail over the laws of war. And so it's very interesting, you know, how these two groups are differentiated also in visual terms.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Absolutely, right. Which is what I will be talking about next. Beginning again in these images with the Bartoli edition, Castello made several easily identifiable differences between the Muslim and Christian soldiers. In the vast Cecil B. DeMille panoramas that we see of the battlefield, Castello clearly marks the Muslim soldiers as wearing turbans, carrying rectangular shields, usually with a crescent moon, and occasionally bearing a large moustache. The Christians are shown with heavy metal helmets and metal armor in the form of cuirass, with shoulder guards or at least a breast plate protecting their thighs in an ancient style leather skirt. Their legs and knees are otherwise bear, and on their feet, they wear Roman style breeves. In doing a bit of research on armor, I learned that during the First Crusade, soldiers would more typically have worn chainmail. Plate armor was only introduced in the 13th century. So for both the poorly protected Muslim troops and the Christian three-quarter covered soldiers, anachronisms abound. Also imprecisions. However, Castello succeeds in allowing the viewer to scan the armies and figure out which side they represent very quickly. The women are sometimes shown in full armor. Here we see Clarinda and Armida in different sides. But at other times, they wear long, flowing skirts and gowns, as we'll see soon enough with our discussion of Armida. These anomalies could be seen as either breaches of decorum or verisimilitude and the Aristotelian unities, or as necessary visual evidence that discloses identity in order to preserve the greater integrity of the narrative. There's another film version by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, I wanted to share with you, in this wonderful poster from 1957. This clearly, we know exactly what we're looking at. And I recommend it to you as well worth a binge watch. [laughter] In addition to the poster, there's some other film stills online, and here we see Cinecitta's version of a swords and sandals extravaganza. The stereotypes of the Muslim soldier need no comment. Of course, these notions of difference, whether gender based or cultural, also implicated both readers and viewers in the early modern period. The masking of the Islamic soldiers as a vast, undifferentiated army, for instance, lessens one's empathy for the individual who might be captured, banished, or worse, slaughtered. And many times, people are said to be torn to pieces or cut to pieces in the narrative. Equally interesting, as Laura has pointed out, is that women in the "Gerusalemme" tend to be the characters who best and most effectively disguise themselves in order to cross over between religions, cultures, and amorous pursuits.

^M00:45:27

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Yes. As an example of the love that unites members of the -- or at least tries to unite members of the two opposite groups, we may look no further than the episode of Erminia among the shepherds. Erminia is a Muslim queen who had been captured by Tancredi, a Christian knight, and later released. But only literally released, as Tasso says, because metaphorically, she's still a prisoner of Tancredi, because she has fallen in love with him. And so although she's now safe within Jerusalem, she longs to be with Tancredi, so she ventures out. But in order to venture out, she needs to steal Clorinda's armor, so we see this other theme of mistaken identities, identity confusion. And so she ventures out, but two guards see her. They think she's Clorinda, and they start chasing her. So she runs away, she gallops away, and then when she's finally exhausted, she dismounts from the horse and she falls asleep. And when she wakes up, she wakes up in a different poem. [laughter] And as this passage again -- I hope you can read the translation.

^M00:46:47

[ Reading in Italian ]

^M00:47:25

So notice that, first of all, now Erminia reveals her true identity. She's not a warrior, she's a woman. But notice also that the landscape around Jerusalem, that had been described by Tasso, is a desert, essentially, now becomes the setting for a [inaudible]. It is literally a different poem with the shepherds who play and sing tunes.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: That's a great segue, thank you. [laughter] And as mentioned earlier, and just now, pastoral landscapes became one of the most believed settings for 17th century artists and litterati. Thus, the episode of Erminia and the shepherds is a frequent subject from Tasso in prints and paintings. In addition to the leafy and abundant landscapes, artists were drawn to Tasso's description of two compelling themes, the sound of the children playing pipes that attracted Erminia in the first place to the shepherds' home and the quick succession of emotions that the young boys and their father experience when they first see her. You'll see, it's very minimally understandable, but if you know the poem, you understand there's a little [inaudible] moment here where they're scared, they don't know. They think she is a warrior. Okay? And at this point, her identity is completely hidden beneath Clorinda's armor and they are sore afraid. The minute that Erminia removes her helmet, however, the shepherds are put at ease, and then entreat her to remain with them, and she's tempted. This scene finds many interpreters, including Geurchino -- [pause] Sisto Badalocchio, and others. I wanted to make certain that you would at least be introduced to this clever reimagining of this scene by the Florentine artist Santi di Tito, as a family portrait. Here, the mother is Erminia, the father is the shepherd, and the three children are the pipers. Further, I wanted to bring to your attention something closer at hand, at the National Gallery of Art. We are fortunate to have two grand 18th century canvases from a Venetian palace painted by the brothers Antonio and Gian Francesco Guardi, one depicting Erminia and the shepherds and the other Carlo and Ubaldo encounter the sirens while searching for Rinaldo, a scene that we'll come up to next.

^M00:50:00

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Erminia has [inaudible]. Erminia was one of Tasso's most original creations, starting with the name. Tasso invented the name Erminia. And yet, as you can imagine, when Tasso went back to his poem, he thought that there was no place for this [inaudible] interlude the Christian epoch, so also Erminia disappears. However, some other episodes were too tightly embedded in the poem. They were, in fact, not episodes, but full-fledged stories, and could not easily be eliminated. And one of the most famous is the story of Rinaldo and Armida. Armida is a Muslim enchantress who manages to distract many Christians from their mission. She's in fact, I would claim, Goffredo's real antagonist, because Goffredo represents a centripetal force that binds the army together and propels it towards Jerusalem, while Armida embodies the opposite principle, multiplicity, variety, a centripetal force that encourages the soldiers who follow their instinct instead of their duty. And Armida is very close to celebrating her triumph when Rinaldo -- so the imaginary ancestor of the [inaudible] through which Tasso writes, as well as the right arm of the Christian army in Tasso's view of the single agent in his poem. Rinaldo is asleep and is about to be killed by Armida. And then Armida makes the fatal mistake. She looks at Rinaldo. Rinaldo's so beautiful, and she falls in love with him. And the last two lines say "e'n su la vaga fronte pende omai si che par Narciso al fonte," like Narcissus at the pool, she hung upon his lovely face. So already from the very beginning, this is a very strong narcissistic element in the love between Armida and Rinaldo.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Thank you. Laura has set the stage beautifully for Nicolas Poussin's "Rinaldo and Armida." In his book on Poussin, "The Poetics of Painting," Jonathan Unglaub offers a penetrating analysis of the artist's interpretation. He calls our attention to the sparseness of the barren landscape and the single fervor of Eros or Cupid, rather than having an army of puttee that many other artists would do. The better to focus our attention on the moment when love, literally love, love as amour, love as Cupid, restrains Armida from plunging her dagger into Rinaldo's chest. Only love, he says, has the power to disarm hostility. Just so, Armida's hatred transforms into intense love, which is communicated both in the interruption of her murderous plot, and in the intensity of her gaze, squarely locked, on Rinaldo's face. In the next scene, also by Poussin, the smitten Armida prepares to take the sleeping Rinaldo back to her enchanted island and one of the few versions to show the actual transport. I'm leading us through the narrative here. This is by Domenico Fiasella, one of my favorites from Genoa, who depicts Armida's flying chariot laden with flowers.

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Oh, this is beautiful. And so, in fact, Armida decides to take Rinaldo to the isola fortunata, which are usually identified with Canary Islands. And so she takes him there in her beautiful garden, which is also a beautiful building with beautiful paths.

^M00:54:18

[ Reading in Italian ]

^M00:54:37

So the first word here is "tondo," circular. So Armida's circular universe is the negation of Goffredo's straight itinerary towards Jerusalem. So Armida and Rinaldo enjoy the garden's eternal spring.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Right. Well, I think we'll move to the --

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Yeah, to the next one. The garden's attempt --

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: We'll see the gardens in a minute. [laughter]

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Do not worry. Do not despair. [laughter] But we also see what Rinaldo and Armida do in the garden, and among other things, they perform complex love rituals. In particular, the scene of the mirror, where Armida takes care of her hair and she looks at herself in the mirror, and Rinaldo helps her.

^M00:55:37

[ Reading in Italian ]

^M00:55:58

I must have read these verses a hundred times and I still have problems understanding precisely what they mean, right? They are so beautiful, so musical, and yet, when you try to find exactly what this is saying, you are in trouble. And the thing, this is not -- it's not that Tasso's making a mistake, but on the contrary. Here, it's both representing Armida's charm and pointing at the fact that that charm leads to confusion, to gender confusion, and also literally to the loss of mean [?]. I think this is why this line is so problematic.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Exactly. And we see one of the scenes here, again, from the Bartoli edition here at the Library of Congress. As diverting and interesting as these parts of the love story are, some of the most fascinating from an art historical perspective are those that involve gazes and reflections. While under Armida's spell, Rinaldo is incapable of seeing himself as he is. Rather, he only perceives himself through his reflection in her eyes. And we'll see that better in other versions. Fight, Annibale Carracci, who understood exactly what Tasso was trying to say, I think. [laughter] So if we had more time, I would develop an idea of pictorial intelligence, which I would say is equally as refined as literally intelligence. But I think he really gets it. Here, Armida's pictured as gazing at her reflection in the mirror, while Rinaldo stares rather vapidly into her eyes. He's no longer dressed as a soldier. The only thing that's left is he sword. I think we'll hear more about that. His limply placed sword, without saying more. [laughter] And he is now a luce cordier in her enthrall.

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Yes. Absolutely. And this is a love that can only blossom in a place removed from war, from battle, from the making of history. But history and war enter the garden when Carlo and Ubaldo, two Christian warriors, manage to fulfill their mission, and rescue Rinaldo. They take advantage of Armida's momentary absence and present Rinaldo with a shield. And this shield, interestingly enough, is another mirror. But as Maggie Gunsberg has pointed out, is a mirror that serves the opposite function than Armida's mirror. So while Armida's mirror [inaudible] narcissism and confusion, this mirror instills guilt and awareness. In other words, by looking at his reflection in the mirror, Rinaldo sees himself as an unwanted member of a social group, of the Christian Army. Basically, he has recovered this new sense of social expectations, if we can say so. And indeed, the dangling sword that fell at his side is very prominent also in Tasso's lines here.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Thank you. It is not until Carlo and Ubaldo, who have been sent by Goffredo and the Christian troops to retrieve Rinaldo, espy their commander that they helped to reveal their leader to himself through seeing his own reflection. And here, from a Florentine anonymous fresco cycle. But do you see? It's one of the rare, rare versions where they show the actual moment of the reflective shield, which is supposed to have like a diamond-like surface. Am I right about that?

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Yeah, absolutely.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: And this weapon, a much more masculine one, the polished diamond surface of the shield. And in that moment, Rinaldo awakens to his true appearance and at once vows to leave Armida's island. To return briefly to the version by Annibale Carraci. Do you see in the background Carlo and Ubaldo with the shield that glints just a little bit of light, hinting at what's to come. It's again, just --

^M01:00:43

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Yeah. It's fascinating how painters tend to represent various moments in the story, right?

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Exactly.

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: With the different paints and [inaudible]. Well, as you've probably figured out by now, none of the love stories of the "liberata" had a happy ending. [laughter] This is what Tasso himself wrote in one of his letters. But no story is as tragic as the one of Tancredi and Clorinda. We have already mentioned these two characteristics. Clorinda is the warrior woman who encountered to rescue Olindo and Sofronia, while Tancredi is the Christian soldier who Erminia loved. But Tancredi did not love Erminia because he loved Clorinda. He loved Clorinda simply because he had seen her once by a stream without her helmet on. [laughter] And yet, fallen madly in love with her. And it's a love that becomes an obsession. They have very few -- in fact, you mentioned, one of the few encounters in battle they had before canto twelve, which is really their canto, the canto of Tancredi and Clorinda. Canto twelve begins with an ero note, like Virgil, notes errata. So it was night time, it was night time, which seems a Meredith chronological remark, but actually introduces one of the main protagonists of the canto, the knight which generates confusion, darkness, and tragedy for misunderstandings. Clorinda is within Jerusalem and she's restless. She thinks that she should go outside the wall of Jerusalem to set on fire a war machine, a mobile tower, that the Christians have used quite successfully to date. But in order to go out unnoticed, she decides not to wear her usual armor, and she dons a dark armor.

^M01:03:07

[ Reading in Italian ]

^M01:03:22

"An omen full of fear," [inaudible]. So there seems to be something strange about Armida -- sorry, about Clorinda's armor. And her servant, Arsete, who has taken care of her since she was a baby, decides that this is the right time to tell Clorinda her real story. The real story's quite complex, but the main points are that Clorinda was born in Ethiopia, and she was born from Christian parents. And then, through a complex set of circumstances, her mother had to entrust her to Arsete. Arsete had raised her as Muslim. And he had neglected to baptize her as Clorinda's mom had recommended. But now, Arsete just had a dream and in the dream, St. George has appeared and has urged him to baptize Clorinda before it is too late. And this is the story that Arsete tells Clorinda, but Clorinda decides, nevertheless, that she wants to -- that she believes in her fate and decides to venture out to complete this mission. And in fact, she goes out, she sets the tower on fire. Then she tries to get back into Jerusalem, but the door is locked at the wrong time. And this is what Tasso expresses beautifully, I think, with this octet, which begins, "Aperta e l'Aurea porta," so the golden gate is open. And then it ends with the door is -- "e chiusa a poi la porta..." [reading in Italian] The door is swung to. Clorinda is shut out. And the following octet starts by emphasizing the same concept. [in Italian] Shut alone is she. So she's really in this no man's or no woman's land, where she's among enemies, although those enemies, she has just learned, are really the group to which she belongs by birth. Yet, it's night time, so Clorinda hopes that thanks to her disguise, she'll be able to go unnoticed. And in fact, she almost manages, but Tancredi manages to see her. And Tancredi makes a tragic mistake. "Solo Tancredi avien che lei conosca," of this, it chanced that the one man [inaudible] was Tancred. "Conosca," Tasso says, which is a very ambiguous verb. In modern Italian, the difference between conoce, so to meet for the first time, and the Greek "gignosko," to recognize, is very clear. But this was not the case in the 16th century, where conoce could mean either thing, you know, convey either meaning. So for a moment, the reader thinks that Tancredi recognized Clorinda, but what follows makes clear that that's not at all the case. In fact, Tancredi thinks that Clorinda is a man, and he follows her and challenges her to a dual. And this "Va girando colei l'alpestre cima," she sought some other gate to enter town, is the beginning of Monteverdi's cCombattimento that you'll discuss later on. So they begin this furious fight that has some really tragic and almost disturbing undertones, where the language of love and the language of war coincide. For instance, this passage.

^M01:07:07

[ Reading in Italian ]

^M01:07:18

So for a tragic perversion, what should have been a lover's embrace is transferred into a man and his deadly grip. So they fight throughout the night, but as the sun rises from the east, Tancredi formulates a request. He says, you know, it's really a shame that we don't know each other's name. Who are you? And this is a very common request in [inaudible] literature, but the reader can perceive a tragic urgency and a tragic irony in  request. His problem is precisely that he doesn't know the name of his mysterious opponent. But Clorinda refuses to reveal her identity, and the fight resumes. And Clorinda is wounded to death and she's about to die. And as she -- sorry. As she is about to die, she formulates a request. She asks that she be baptized. So she asks to be baptized. At which point, Tancredi goes to a nearby stream, fills his helmet with water, and goes back to the dying warrior. And as you can see here, he has almost a premonition while he's trying to free the warrior's face from the helmet. [reading in Italian] And then there is the tragic revelation.

^M01:09:06

[ Reading in Italian ]

^M01:09:15

And notice how these last lines with their staccato -- with their rapid succession of short, essential sentences conveys the change in perspective in Tancredi. Because after that point, Tancredi has been fighting, running, and chasing ghosts, but only now he realizes what he has really done. So Tancredi and Clorinda, probably the most tragic creation in the "Jerusalem Delivered." An episode that is at the same time coherent as a narration and skillful as a work of poetry. Tasso uses a number of poetic devices, alteration, [inaudible], assonance, and broad dichotomies, male and female, death and salvation, night and day to tell a suspenseful story. But the thing that the -- the real reason for the enduring success of these episodes lies in its universal scene. Tancredi's problem is that he fails to recognize his beloved until it is too late. This is the trend that units the different stages of the episode from that first ironic [in Italian], of this, it chanced that the one man aware was Tancred, to the tragic revelation, [in Italian]. Notice that the verbs are the same, conocere [inaudible]. Perhaps in the translation, that is lost a bit. But those are the same verbs that Tasso uses. So therefore, the real theme of the episode is the failure to acknowledge, recognize, understand, embrace [inaudible], a theme that resonates throughout the century and for all of us. And to think, this is the reason why Tancredi and Clorinda would continue to strike each other as warriors and miss each other as lovers in the works of many painters and composers, right? Because it's an extremely successful episode.

^M01:11:45

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Absolutely. As we'll see, and interpreted in many different ways, or different aspects are highlighted. Throughout this dialogue, I've been concentrating on the early graphic representations of Gerusalemme because they were most often the first ones produced, and in many ways, the most influential to the artists who followed. Not only did a significant number of artists own the illustrated editions of Tasso, which provided rich visual material, they were undoubtedly respond to the argumente and the privileging of the particular scenes by the commentators and the illustrators. Among the first of the painted responses to Tasso is a powerfully foreshortened view of the conversion of Clorinda by Domenico Tintoretto. Having fought through the entire night, Tancredi and Clorinda are seen just as dawn breaks in the background. Tintoretto augmented the terrestrial light with a dazzling, heavenly vision of two seraphim accompanying the dove of the Holy Ghost. Any of you who know scenes of Baptism of Christ often see the same kinds of images. This divine apparition serves as a kind of exclamation point to the counter-reformation themes that adhere to Tasso's epic, though they are not specifically described by him. Together, the angles in breaking dawn, turn the carpet of plants a golden hue. The raking angles of the figures draw our attention to the subtle details of Tasso's verses. Clorinda's ashen face, and these are Tasso's words, "like violets mixed with lilies, and her mortal wound, from whence blood has stained her blouse," on one hand, and the swiftly running Tancred -- note for instance, his extended left leg -- who arrives with the water for baptism at the precise moment she's about to expire. By contrast, Sisto Badalocchio orients the scene parallel to the picture plane and draws the viewer in with a brilliant light that bathes Clorinda's bare and bloodied chest. Although we can again see dawn breaking in the distance, Clorinda, having declared her conversion and receiving baptism from the hand of Tancred, herself appears to be a source emanating light. There is no heavenly apparition. Rather, a more naturalistic or in the words of the period, "verisimile," kind of interpretation. Yet this internally generated light beatifies Clorinda, who looks more like a martyred saint than a dying war heroine. Similarly, Badalocchio sets his narrative in a verdant landscape far from the walls of Jerusalem, which we barely glimpse in the background. In the same -- excuse me. At the same time, the counter-reformatory message is balanced by the tender class of Tancredi and Clorinda's proper left hands and the ambiguity of their gazes. Whereas Tancred concentrates on the act of baptism, Clorinda looks lovingly at him, not toward heaven. The balance of sacred and profane in Badalocchio's painting is pushed to its most contumacious extreme in Giovanni Bilivert's version, in which Clorinda has lost not only her helmet, but every shred of clothing.

^M01:15:08

[ Laughter ]

^M01:15:11

I wanted to add to that. In the cinematic version, again from our 1957 extravaganza, we see the exhausted warriors helmetless and sprawled on the bank of a river, but with no visible wounds or even a drop of sweat. [laughter] I'd like to turn now to one of the grandest early responses to Tasso's epic, which was found not in Italy, but in France. Though the patron was the Italian-born Marie d'Medici, who married Henri Quatre, Henry the Fourth, in 1600. In the Cabinet de la Reine at Fontainbleau, Marie commissioned Ambroise Dubois to paint a suite of canvases on themes taken from Gerusalemme. Not surprisingly, all of the episodes concerned female protagonists. Clorinda, Sofronia, and from Heliodorus' novel, an Ethiopian story that focuses on Chariclea. And some of you may know Joaneath Spicer at the Walters Art Museum. She's written about Chariclea and Clorinda as Ethiopian princesses. Foremost among these large scale paintings is the combat of Tancredi and Clorinda, here we see it, which bears comparison to the composition of Domenico Mona in his drawing from the third canto. Instead of the non-violent meeting, Dubois has chosen the heat of battle, where the two ill-fated lovers, unknown to one another despite being only clad with armor and wearing helmets that reveal their faces -- [laughter] -- I know, it's crazy. You have to suspend a lot of disbelief. [laughing] They're about to wield their swords. Since this is a painting cycle and not an illustrated book, the artist and patron freely select which cantos to highlight and which ancillary scenes to depict. Here we find not only the combattimento, but also the rarely represented scenes of the birth of Clorinda, which is lost. But this one is here. "Tancredi and Clorinda at the Fountain," which is what you described as a stream, here interpreted by Dubois as a fountain. The moment that Tancred's love first blossoms, here. Clorinda seems rather indifferent up to the very end, from the first canto, the 46 to 47, and to Tancred in front of the walls of Jerusalem. And I wanted to show next, a very rare scene, but it was mentioned by Laura, of Clorinda before Arsete. This in another drawing by Domenico Mona -- yes. And in this one is the moment of the telling of the long tale of how she's connected to her Christian family, including in some people's imaginations, Prester John. So it really has far-reaching meaning. This is the complete cycle, the one I've been looking at with Dubois, of the encounters between Tancredi and Clorinda. And I bring it to your attention for its relevance to Monteverdi's Combattimento, as there is nothing comparable in Italian art. But if Monteverdi's intervention is more like a musical [inaudible] into text, Dubois' is a visual concordance in which every scene where Tancredi and Clorinda appear is brought to life. Unlike Dubois' cycle, Monteverdi drew his entire text from the 12th canto, octaves 52 to 62 and 64 to 68. In addition to allowing the composer to maintain Aristotle's unities of time, space, and action, the selections of three episodes -- excuse me -- of these episodes, provided a strongly pro-Christian, anti-Turk or anti-Muslim message for the Venetian audience gathered for a performance of the Combattimento in the palace of Girolamo Mocenigo, who was the provveditore of the Venetian state. And this was during Lent, carnival season, of 1624. Tasso's fertile poetry offers many opportunities to artists and composers. They saw different things or inflected different actions and emotions within the same text. For example, Monteverdi's "Libereto" for the Combattimento omits the final scene of the transport of Clorinda to the Christian camp, which is in Castello. He emphasizes the movement of the figures from one field to the -- oops. Sorry, I need to go one more. There. To the next. And closely following Tasso's text. Monteverdi chooses to preserve the Aristotilian unity of place and thus, has both the conversion and the death of Clorinda occur on the battlefield. Monteverdi inserts a narrator called Testo, thus the text becomes a character in the opera and one that allows both Tancredi and Clorinda to enact a choreographed battle. And we'll see a little snippet of this at the very end. While he describes the action, as well as two principle actors and brings us into the scene in medias res. The Combattimento was written in what Monteverdi called "the genere rappresentativo," by which historians of music believe that he meant a theatrical mode. Before the original performance, which occurred around 1624 in the private residence I mentioned, during the season of Carnival, the first audience had no clue what they would witness. They were enjoying the diversions of a soiree with strolling musicians and conversation. The characters entered unexpectedly during the course of singing madrigals. Clorinda in armor, followed by Tancred on a "cavallo Mariano." Let me explain. This term has variously been interpreted as a kind of capirosoned hobby horse emblazoned with symbols of the Virgin Mary, or possibly, as a typo for a cavallo marino, or sea horse. Personally, I would love for it to be the latter. [laughter] A sea horse would make the setting for the opera in a Venetian palace all that more -- much more marvelous and of the period. Monteverdi's own description in his 8th Book of Madrigals of love and war speaks volumes about his intentions and the reception of the first performance. They will perform -- these are his words -- steps and gestures in the way expressed by the oration, nothing more, nothing less. Observing diligently those measures, flows, and steps, and the instrumentalists will follow and perform sounds excited and soft. In Italian, "Suane et cher tati et mali." And Testo, delivering the words in measure in such a way that the three actions come to unite in a unified imitation. Clorinda will speak when appropriate, Testo, silent, and similarly, Tancredi. The instruments, that is, four violi del braccio, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. And a contrabasso da gamba, which is the continuo with a harpsichord, should be played in imitation of the passions of the oration. Testo's voice should be clear, firm, and with good delivery, somewhat distanced from the instruments, so that the oration may be better understood. He must not remake -- or, sorry. He must not remake "gorghe ne trilli" which, I don't know if we have any music historians here, but those are ornamentations from the period. So it's supposed to be very limited, unadorned music for the most part. For the rest, he will deliver words according to the passions of the oration. And in this manner, now 12 years ago, was performed in the palace of the most illustrious and most excellent Senor Girolamo Mocenigo. My particular lord, with all refinement, given that he is a knight of excellent and delicate taste. And in Carnival time, since it was an evening pastime, in the presence of all the nobility, who remained moved by the emotion of compassion in such a way as almost to let forth tears. And the audience applauded it for being a song of a kind never before heard.

^M01:23:38

Monteverdi's Combattimento introduced many noveta, or novelties, to music performance. It is said to be the first instance of the use of pizzicato and tremolo in the strings, which together added more agitation and excitement to the singing in what he called the "conchitato ," or aroused manner. In fact, the instrumentalists and the singers often act independently of one another. There is much more to be said, of course, about Monteverdi's great achievements in this rarely performed opera, but I don't want to defer your pleasure much longer. The presentation of the video will make things clearer than any exegesis could hope to do. So in closing, it's important to remember that the first performance came as a complete surprise to all in attendance. Perhaps these two reimaginings of the Combattimento, one from the 17th century that we looked at just a minute ago, Bilivert, and one from the 21st century, will serve a similar purpose. Here, President Obama is Tancred. The unidentified woman, maybe it's Hillary, is Clorinda. And the Secret Service man is Testo. [laughter] Badalocchio's version that we've been looking at will be our final one. Talking, laughing, dancing, and certainly gambling, Monteverdi drew the raucous guest into a single focused activity. In keeping with the poetic and artistic conventions of the period, the rappresentazione played shamelessly on the effetti or the effects and emotions of the spectators. The problem for Monteverdi was communicating sympathy for the protagonist when they have so few lines. Thus, the character of Testo is charged with filling in all of the details of action and narrative tissue. Meanwhile, the instrumentalists are heightening emotions and painting sound pictures that provide a physical setting for the actors. When Clorinda, newly baptized, draws her last breath and sees heaven opening before her, the audience is expected to be overcome with emotion. In Tasso's treatise, dell'arte poetica, he stated that the poet's role is to move the reader to anger, pity, or terror, to joy or to sadness. The original audience wept, not because of Monteverdi's music and stagecraft, but because they knew Tasso's "Gerusalemme" so well. It was the startling re-presentation or re-representation of Tasso's poetry in Monteverdi's aroused mode within a theatrical production in an unexpected palace that caused them to experience the epic in a new way. And we hope that your encounter, whether the first or the 21st, will now be similarly informed. This excerpt runs just about three minutes, and I chose the 1993 production from the Netherlands' Opera because it was performed in costume with period musicians, as Monteverdi wanted off stage and the three principals on stage. Testo is performed by Guy de Maio, who sings and emotes, as Tancred, played by Maarten Konigsberger, and Clorinda, Lorna Anderson, is our Clorinda. They sing only when Tasso has supplied them with dialogue. When they challenge each other to fight, to war and death, when Tancred begs his opponent to name him, or in this case, herself, he didn't know, only to confess that she was responsible for burning the Christian's war machine, further angering Tancred. The battle ensues and finally, the recognition of the dying Clorinda, who forgives Tancred and asks for him to baptize her. Remember, as I said, and as Laura has said, she descends from Christian ancestors. And before she expires, Tancred's interior dialogue is voiced by Testo, stupefied as he is, as Laura explained, mute and motionless, "Ahi vista! Ahi conoscenza!" Oh, unhappy sight, oh woeful knowledge. And at last, as she dies, she bids him farewell, I die in peace. So if I can do this properly, now. [laughing] It's a little bit of -- technology here. And I think it's down here on the -- yes. Good. And it should open where I marked it.

^M01:28:15

[music] This is Testo. Can we do the -- yeah, the larger screen?

^M01:28:20

[ Music ]

^M01:28:28

[ Singing in Italian ]

^M01:28:32

^M01:29:50

Thank you.

^M01:29:51

[ Applause ]

^M01:30:01

>> Lucia Wolf: So we have a few minutes left if anybody wants to ask some questions. This was wonderful. Thank you very much. That was a treat. Thank you. So we'll take some questions if you have any.

^M01:30:17

[ Crackling ]

^M01:30:20

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Oh, that's the fire crackling, by the way, at the end here. [laughter]. In case you're wondering what the noise is. [laughter] Nobody's eating a snack. [laughter]

>> Lucia Wolf: Yes?

>> Audience Member: I was thinking about Mattia Preti's version and since we know that Mattia Preti was very -- I mean, he had very strong sensitivity. I wonder if he actually was aware about that symphony, kind of sexual message in the [inaudible]. And he spent a bunch of time in Naples and he knew a lot of [inaudible]. So what do you think? I mean, this is very explicit, you know, sensual scene. [inaudible] So probably we can be established between the link between the text and the perception of the artist. [inaudible]

^M01:31:24

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Yeah, please, you can respond.

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: No, no, no. Please.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: Well, I -- [laughing] It's a painting, right? Okay. Absolutely, that's what I believe, as well. Is that he's making explicit what is only implicit in the very racy words that Tasso used. It's not nearly -- [laughing] as ribald as it becomes in Preti's painting. But yet, there is that undercurrent of sexual tension that's in the text. And you might want to say more about that.

^M01:31:55

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. There's this kind of transformation of Clorinda in a completely different female model, right? I mean, from the Titan and warrior woman to the -- [pause], you know, Petrarchan ideal. In fact, the language really mirrors Petrarca when she, in the crucial parts of the dual and when she converts. So there is definitely an erotization of Clorinda, who had, up to that moment, completely neglected love. So it's absolutely there.

>> Dr. Peter Lukehart: I was going to say though that you're linking in beautifully here both the erotic scene of Sofronia and the very erotic scene of Clorinda, as, you know, again, taking things from the text and making a kind of poetic interpretation on the basis of the artist.

^M01:33:06

^M01:33:17

[ Inaudible Question ]

^M01:33:51

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: Well, for Tasso, and this is already a pretext from Francesco DeSantis that pointed out in Tasso there are two different worlds really, what it says that it wants to do, and what he actually ends up doing. So in his letters, it's very clear. He says, in my poem, love is the instrument to [inaudible] the audience, the devil's tool. So love is there only to be destroyed, essentially. Only to be defeated at the end, right? And in one of the first stanzas, he says that basically, it's poetry and love and only the sugar coating for the bitter medicine that the reader is going to swallow. [laughter] So essentially, he has a moral message and love is supposed to make it more agreeable. But at the end, what matters is the message. That's what he says he intends to do. But then, as we have seen in these characters, he's very convincing when he talks about love and these characters seem to take a life of their own. And so when he tried to, in a way, to really limit all of that and come out with the "Gerusalemme conquistata," the public didn't follow that. So I -- he seems to be championing a different, more modern way of love. Luckily for us, he actually succeeded in expressing some of the most beautiful love stories that have ever been written.

^M01:35:41

>> Lucia Wolf: On that note, a beautiful note, love. [laughter] If you're done? If you're not, we will continue, but I think it's time to wrap this up. I'm sorry if I interrupted.

>> Dr. Laura Benedetti: No, we just wanted to thank everybody, including our public. [laughter] Thank you so much.

^M01:36:06

[ Applause ]

^M01:36:09

>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us as loc.gov.

^E01:36:16