Torquato Tasso (; 11 March 1544 – 25 April 1595) was an
Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem
La Gerusalemme liberata (
Jerusalem Delivered,
1581), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between
Christians and
Muslims at the end of the
First Crusade, during the
siege of Jerusalem. He suffered from mental illness and died a few days before he was due to be
crowned as the king of poets by
the Pope. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe.