page_title: Torquato Tasso
section_title: Mental illness
hierarchical_section_title: Torquato Tasso / Mental illness
caption_attribution_description: Roma, Sant'Onofrio al Gianicolo: portico esterno
context_page_description: Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem Gerusalemme liberata, in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the Siege of Jerusalem. Tasso suffered from mental illness and died a few days before he was due to be crowned on the Capitoline Hill as the king of poets by the Pope. His work was widely translated and adapted, and until the beginning of the 20th century, he remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe.
context_section_description: The disease Tasso began to suffer from is now believed to be bipolarity. Legends describe him wandering the streets of Rome half mad, convinced that he was being persecuted. After his lengthy imprisonment in Ferrara's Santa Anna lunatic asylum, he was able to resume his writing, although he never fully recovered.
caption: The Convent of Sant'Onofrio
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