pinion that princes ought to be his
tributaries.[21] Though such pretensions may not have been openly
expressed at this period of his life, it cannot be doubted that Tasso's
temper made him an unpleasant comrade in Court-service. His
sensitiveness, as well as the actual slenderness of his fortunes,
exposed him only too obviously to the malevolent tricks and petty
bullyings of rivals. One knows what a boy of that stamp has to suffer at
public schools, and a Court is after all not very different from an
academy.

Such being the temper of his mind, Tasso at this epoch turned his
thoughts to bettering himself, as servants say. His friend Scipione
Gonzaga pointed out that both the Cardinal de'Medici and the Grand Duke
of Tuscany would be glad to welcome him as an ornament of their
households. Tasso nibbled at the bait all through the summer; and in
November, under the pretext of profiting by the Jubilee, he traveled to
Rome. This journey, as he afterwards declared, was the beginning of his
ruin.[22] It was certainly one of the principal steps which led to the
prison of S. Anna.

[Footnote 20: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. 164, v. p. 6.]

[Footnote 21: _Ib._ vol. iii. pp. 85, 86, 88, 163, iv. pp. 8, 166, v. p.
87.]

[Footnote 22: Letter to Fabio Gonzaga in 1590 (vol. iv. p. 296).]

There were many reasons why Alfonso should resent Tasso's entrance into
other service at this moment. The House of Este had treated him with
uniform kindness. The Cardinal, the duke and the princesses had
severally marked him out by special tokens of esteem. In return they
expected from him the honors of his now immortal epic. That he should
desert them and transfer the dedication of the _Gerusalemme_ to the
Medici, would have been nothing short of an insult; for it was notorious
that the Estensi and the Medici were bitter foes, not only on account of
domestic disagreements and political jealousies, but also because of the
dispute about precedence in their titles which had agitated Italian
society for some time past. In his impatience to leave Ferrara, Tasso
cast prudence to the winds, and entered into negotiations with the
Cardinal de'Medici in Rome. When he traveled northwards at the beginning
of 1576, he betook himself to Florence. What passed between him and the
Grand Duke is not apparent. Yet he seems to have still further
complicated his position by making political disclosures which were
injurious to the Duke of Ferrara. Nor did he gain anyt