L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 34 L'Italo-Americano L i f e b e c o m e s a t i m e w a r p i n C o r n e l l o d e i Tasso, a golden stone medieval hamlet of unusual beauty p e r c h e d o n a c l i f f i n t h e Brembana Valley at 800 m a b o v e s e a l e v e l . O n l y eight kilometers north of San Pellegrino Terme and thirty kilometers from the city of Bergamo, it portrays Italy how it used to be. Cornello dei Tasso seems to have stood still, unruffled by the national and transna- tional events over the cen- turies. S o m e t h i n g a b o u t t h e landscape moves me these days of fall- the stone hous- es huddling together, the fog, the resisting isolation redolent of a poetic genius. No cars have access to the Bergamask beautiful borgo of thirty souls. You can park down near the main road in t h e m u n i c i p a l i t y o f C a m e r a t a C o r n e l l o a n d climb a pretty path among vegetation. A historic international family whose specialty was logistics originated from this c l o s e d - o f f t i n y p l a c e s t i l l today frozen in time. It was t h e f a m i l y o f t h e m a j o r I t a l i a n R e n a i s s a n c e p o e t and playwright Torquato Tasso. His roots were here e v e n i f b o r n ( M a r c h 1 1 , 1 5 4 4 ) i n S o r r e n t o , t h e K i n g d o m o f N a p l e s . H i s father Bernardo, a poet and a man of letters himself best remembered for the epic, l o n g n a r r a t i v e p o e m Amadigi, was then occu- p i e d a s s e c r e t a r y t o t h e P r i n c e o f S a l e r n o . T h e young, talented, and hand- some Torquato studied with the Jesuits in Naples, and from his letters, we know he appreciated the Jesuit edu- c a t i o n h e h a d r e c e i v e d . Later, he studied law and philosophy at the University of Padua and terminated his studies at the University of Bologna from where in 1565 was invited to join the mag- n i f i c e n t E s t e c o u r t a t F e r r a r a . D u k e o f F e r r a r a A l f o n s o I , a R e n a i s s a n c e prince of the House of Este, an engineer and patron of the arts, hired him as a court poet. A d e v o u t C a t h o l i c , Torquato Tasso developed a g u i l t y o b s e s s i o n w i t h h i s work. In 1575 after writing other books, he completed his masterpiece in ottava r i m a e n t i t l e d Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) and t h e n s p e n t s e v e r a l y e a r s revising it. But, by the time it appeared, he had repudi- ated the text because it was immoral and irreligious. Set i n 1 0 9 9 d u r i n g t h e f i n a l months of the First Crusade and culminating in the con- q u e s t o f J e r u s a l e m b y C h r i s t i a n a r m i e s l e d b y G o d f r e y o f B o u i l l o n , t h e h e r o i c e p i c p o e m o f 6 0 0 pages remained one of the most influential books in European literature until the beginning of the 20th- century. It fuses metaphysi- cal depth with psychological profundity. Soon the extraordinary writer began to exhibit signs of mental disorders. Then one day, out of the blue, he drew his dagger to stab a servant he thought to be one of his secret enemies capa- ble of denouncing him to the Inquisition. Symptoms of paranoia, the irrational and persistent feeling that peo- ple were out to get him, con- tinued. In 1579, on the day of his 35th birthday, he lost control again: he showered i n v e c t i v e o n h i s b o s s Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara to whom he dedicated the Gerusalemme Liberata. The duke arrested him and had h i m l o c k e d u p i n S t . A n n hospital, the local mental a s y l u m . T h e i n t e r n m e n t e n d e d i n 1 5 8 6 . T o r q u a t o spent his last years feverish- ly rewriting his masterpiece, w h i c h h e r e t i t l e d Gerusalemme Conquistata - J e r u s a l e m C o n q u e r e d . Prematurely aged and sick, he was feeling the death was approaching and therefore resolved to spend his last f e w d a y s i n a R o m e monastery, St. Onuphrius al G i a n i c o l o . T h e r e h e w a s taken with a violent fever and died finding hope and comfort through prayer and the three sacraments for the d y i n g - - A b s o l u t i o n , t h e Anointing of the sick, and Holy Communion. Torquato p a s s e d a w a y t h e e v e n i n g before Pope Clement VIII was supposed to crown him a s K i n g o f P o e t s o r P o e t Laureate on the Capitoline Hill on April 26, 1595. His work was one of the most widely translated. And until the beginning of the 20th century, he remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe. He fasci- n a t e d t h e R o m a n t i c s , i n c l u d e d L e o p a r d i a n d Goethe, for traits that antici- p a t e d t h o s e o f m o d e r n poets: a pathological sensi- b i l i t y , e x t r e m e s e l f - c o n - sciousness, and martyrdom at the hands of a philistine society. As a student, I was both intrigued by his biography and haunted by his obses- sive personality. I was also delighted by the different voices of his cast of charac- ters, the shadings between glory and tragedy. Torquato had a special b o n d w i t h h i s f a m i l y i n C o r n e l l o a n d n e a r b y Bergamo, a city the Tassos made more interesting in terms of cultural and eco- nomic dynamism. According t o h i s t o r i a n T a r c i s i o Bottani, Torquato visited B e r g a m o o n a t l e a s t t w o occasions, when he stayed with his relatives in Borgo Pignolo, an ancient district located between the upper and the lower city dotted with beautiful Renaissance palazzos. "He was a 13-year-old boy w h e n s t o p p e d b y , " s a y s Bottani. "He and his father w e r e o n t h e i r w a y t o France." The second time was after being discharged from Saint Ann's Hospital. "He never forgot Bergamo," Bottani r e m a r k s . " I n a l e t t e r addressed to the governors o f B e r g a m o t o s o l i c i t h i s release from the mental asy- lum, he described himself as "a citizen of Bergamo not only by descent but also by affection." The hamlet of Cornello MARIELLA RADAELLI Portrait of Francesco Tasso, considered the inventor of the postal system. Photo: Museo dei Tasso e della Storia Postale Continued to page 36 LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE Cornello dei Tasso and history's first postal service

• Cover