Flaminio de'Nobili, vulpine Speroni with his
poisoned fang of pedantry, precise Antoniano with his inquisitorial
prudery. They were to pass their several criticisms on the plot,
characters, diction, and ethics of the _Gerusalemme_; Tasso was to
entertain and weigh their arguments, reserving the right of following or
rejecting their advice, but promising to defend his own views. To the
number of this committee he shortly after added three more scholars,
Francesco Piccolomini, Domenico Veniero, and Celio Magno.[15] Not to
have been half maddened by these critics would have proved Tasso more or
less than human. They picked holes in the structure of the epic, in its
episodes, in its theology, in its incidents, in its language, in its
title. One censor required one alteration, and another demanded the
contrary. This man seemed animated by an acrid spite; that veiled his
malice in the flatteries of candid friendship. Antoniano was for cutting
out the love passages: Armida, Sofronia, Erminia, Clorinda, were to
vanish or to be adapted to conventual proprieties. It seemed to him more
than doubtful whether the enchanted forest did not come within the
prohibitions of the Tridentine decrees. As the revision advanced,
matters grew more serious. Antoniano threw out some decided hints of
ecclesiastical displeasure; Tasso, reading between the lines, scented
the style of the Collegium Germanicum.

[Footnote 15: Tasso consulted almost every scholar he could press into
his service. But the official tribunal of correction was limited to the
above named four acting in concert with Scipione Gonzaga.]

Speroni spoke openly of plagiarism--plagiarism from himself
forsooth!--and murmured the terrible words between his teeth, 'Tasso is
mad!' He was in fact driven wild, and told his tormentors that he would
delay the publication of the epic, perhaps for a year, perhaps for his
whole life, so little hope had he of its success.[16] At last he
resolved to compose an allegory to explain and moralize the poem. When
he wrote the _Gerusalemme_ he had no thought of hidden meanings; but
this seemed the only way of preventing it from being dismembered by
hypocrites and pedants.[17] The expedient proved partially successful.
When Antoniano and his friends were bidden to perceive a symbol in the
enchanted wood and other marvels, a symbol in the loves of heroines and
heroes, a symbol even in Armida, they relaxed their wrath. The
_Gerusalemme_ might possibly p