hing by the offer
of his services and his poem to Francesco de'Medici. In a letter of
February 4, 1576, the Grand Duke wrote that the Florentine visit of that
fellow, 'whether to call him a mad or an amusing and astute spirit, I
hardly know,'[23] had been throughout a ridiculous affair; and that
nothing could be less convenient than his putting the _Gerusalemme_ up
to auction among princes. One year later, he said bluntly that 'he did
not want to have a madman at his Court.'[24] Thus Tasso, like his
father, discovered that a noble poem, the product of his best pains, had
but small substantial value. It might, indeed, be worth something to the
patron who paid a yearly exhibition to its author; but it was not a gem
of such high price as to be wrangled for by dukes who had the cares of
state upon their shoulders. He compromised himself with the Estensi, and
failed to secure a retreat in Florence.

[Footnote 23: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. viii.]

Meanwhile his enemies at Ferrara were not idle. Pigna had died in the
preceding November. But Antonio Montecatino, who succeeded him as ducal
secretary, proved even a more malicious foe, and poisoned Alfonso's mind
against the unfortunate poet. The two princesses still remained his
faithful friends, until Tasso's own want of tact alienated the
sympathies of Leonora. When he returned in 1576, he found the beautiful
Eleonora Sanvitale, Countess of Scandiano, at Court. Whether he really
fell in love with her at first sight, or pretended to do so in order to
revive Leonora d'Este's affection by jealousy, is uncertain.[25] At any
rate he paid the countess such marked attentions, and wrote for her and
a lady of her suite such splendid poetry, that all Ferrara rang with
this amour. A sonnet in Tasso's handwriting, addressed to Leonora d'Este
and commented by her own pen, which even Guasti, no credulous believer
in the legend of the poet's love, accepts as genuine, may be taken as
affording proof that the princess was deeply wounded by her servant's
conduct.[26]

[Footnote 24: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. xxx. note 34.]

[Footnote 25: Guarino, in a sonnet, hinted at the second supposition.
See Rosini's _Saggio sugli Amori_, &c. vol. xxxiii. of his edition of
Tasso, p. 51.]

[Footnote 26: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. xxxi.]

It is obvious that, though Tasso's letters at this period show no signs
of a diseased mind, his conduct began to strike outsiders as insane.
Francesco de'Medici used the plai