TASSO: ARTFUL WORDSMITH AND IMPOVERISHED PAINTER

Thus Galileo mocks the lack of vividness, or enargeia, of the Gerusalemme liberata in his Considerazioni al Tasso. Ironically, this vehement denunciation was occasioned by the very passage where the epic attains the greatest pictorial resonance – the description of Armida's garden in Canto XVI. Yet despite the ekphrastic overdetermination of the scene, Galileo found its imagery wanting. Why, for instance, does Tasso compare Armida to an “iride” and a “pavon,” then fail to follow through with a detailed description of sumptuous attire and jewels, rivaling the brilliant plumage of a peacock or the palette of a rainbow (XVI.24)? Other metaphors, while presented in striking chromatic language, are obscure, even senseless. Tasso wishes to convey how Armida's perspiration makes her already ardent countenance gleam even more intensely. He writes, “e'l suo infiammato viso / fan biancheggiando i bei sudori più vivo” (the beautiful beads of sweat make her already enflamed face whiten more vividly) (XVI.18). Unable to grasp the image, Galileo confesses that the only thing he had seen sweat turn white was the testicles of horses! In the final analysis, Galileo can conclude only that Tasso is a “pittorino poverino.”

This assessment is especially evident in comparison to Ariosto and his exhaustive description of Alcina's beauty in the corresponding garden scene of the Orlando Furioso (VII.11–15).