1823 La Gerusalemme Liberata

Description

Leather Binding, Original Binding, Publishers' Original Binding

Italian. Complete in two volumes. With a portrait frontispiece to volume one. An epic poem first published in 1581, that tells a largely imaginative and mythical version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to take Jerusalem. This work held topical resonance to readers of the period, as the Ottoman Empire was advancing through Eastern Europe. The poem was widely successful with sections or moments from the story used in works all over Europe, especially in the period before the French Revolution and the Romantic movement. Written by Torquato Tasso, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, best known for this work. His work was widely translated and adapted, and he died just a few days before he was to be crowned on the Capitoline Hill as the king of poets by Pope Clement VIII.