97, the social side of
court life in his dukedom came into special prominence. The two sisters
of Alfonso--Lucrezia and Leonora--presided over this court, and to it
came, from time to time, many of the most beautiful women of Italy.
Tarquinia Moeza was there, a woman of beauty and of rare poetic gifts;
Lucrezia Bendidio, beautiful and accomplished, and having constantly
about her a most admiring throng of poets and literati; and later came
the two acknowledged beauties of the day, Leonora di Sanvitali, Countess
of Scandiano, and her no less charming mother-in-law, Barbara, Countess
of Sala. Among the men of this company, suffice it to mention the name
of the poet Guarini, whose fame has become enduring on account of his
charming and idyllic drama, _Il pastor fido_, for he it is who seems to
embody that sprightliness of wit which gave to Ferrara at that time its
gladsome reputation.

To this court there came, for the first time, in the year 1565, young
Torquato Tasso, poet and courtier, scholar and gentleman, and already
the author of a published narrative poem, the _Rinaldo_, which caused
him to be hailed as the most promising poet of his generation when he
was but in his eighteenth year. Bernardo Tasso, the poet's father, was
likewise a poet and a professional courtier of some distinction, and
varying fortunes had taken him to Urbino, where the son Torquato grew
up, surrounded by all the evidences of refinement and culture. He had
been favored by nature with a tall and commanding figure, and his good
looks had already caused more than one gentle heart to flutter, when, at
the age of twenty-one, with his father's consent and approval, he
entered the service of the Cardinal Luigi d'Este, and became at once a
conspicuous figure in court circles. Almost instantly the youth, filled
as he was with most romantic ideas and readily susceptible to the power
of woman's beauty, fell a captive to the charms of the Princess Leonora
d'Este, who, though some ten years his senior, seemed to embody all the
graces and to completely satisfy the ideal which up to this time he had
been able to see only with his mind's eye. Leonora had already been
sought in marriage by many titled suitors, but she had invariably turned
a deaf ear to such proposals, never finding one who could please her
fancy or who promised comfort in her loneliness. For she was lonely in
that court, as she seems to have dwelt in a sort of spiritual isolation
most of the t