Venice became an important part of the southern Renaissance with the paintings of the Bellini brothers in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and flourished in the sixteenth century with their successors Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. Venetian painting distinguished itself by emphasising colour over line and form, but there were also important differences in media.

From long before the Renaissance, the largest paintings in Europe were made using fresco on the walls and ceilings of churches and other religious buildings. Because Venice had been built on marshy islands in a lagoon, the walls of its buildings remained damp and proved unsuitable for classical fresco technique. Supplies of wood were also limited, and the fabrication of large wooden panels was impractical. It was in Venice that the largest paintings were thus made in oil paints on stretched canvas.

In other circumstances, what are considered to be large canvases might attain five or six metres (16-20 feet) in their longer dimension. This article shows a selection where that exceeds ten metres (33 feet), and in one case twenty-two metres (72 feet), all but one created by Jacopo Tintoretto and his workshop.

In 1559-60, Tintoretto painted two commissions for the church of Madonna dell’Orto, where he was to be buried. Each nearly fifteen metres (50 feet) high, they’re among his most spectacular.

The Last Judgment was probably painted first, and shows apocalyptic scenes from Biblical eschatology, notably the book of Revelation. To some extent, paintings of the last judgement are inevitably chaotic, as that is part of the event, but Tintoretto’s overall composition here isn’t as well-conceived as in the second of the pair. The painting has several focal passages, in particular the horizontal winged angel wearing orange shorts just over half way up, and the figure of Christ at its apex.

The lower sections show a dark base filled with contorted bodies blending in with rock and water, an underworld without the usual fire. Above is a band of sea green, in which there is a reprise of the flood, and bodies are washed along in a great wave. The middle then takes to the air, where figures sit on clouds still bringing rain to those in the waters below. The central crucifix seen at the foot isn’t part of the painting.

In the upper section, above the angel in orange, rays of light are streaming down from Jesus at the apex. Individual figures are now more readily distinguished, and some of them recognisable. At each side are winged angels with long trumpets, and a double band of black clouds marking the threshold of heaven. On the right, a martyr wearing a deep blue loincloth sits with his crucifix against his shoulder: he could be Saint Andrew.

Higher still is the mother of twins, her back to the viewer, looking up towards the heaped black cloud on which Jesus Christ sits at the centre, with the Virgin Mary on one side and Saint John the Baptist on the other. Particularly in the upper section, many of the figures are foreshortened and distorted.

The second, the Making of the Golden Calf, shows one of the more memorable stories of Moses, from the book of Exodus in the Old Testament. During that epic journey from bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land, Moses left the Israelites for a period of forty days and nights, when he ascended Mount Sinai to be given the Ten Commandments. While he was away, the people demanded that Moses’ brother and deputy Aaron made them a graven image to worship.

He gathered all their gold, which was melted down and cast into the form of a calf, which they then worshipped. God told Moses that they had already fallen from his ways, so Moses descended from Sinai. He was so angry with the Israelites that he broke the two tablets containing the commandments. He burnt the golden calf, ground it to powder, scattered it on water, and made the people drink it. The only people who didn’t worship the calf were the tribe of Levi, who became the first priestly class.

Tintoretto’s overall design of this simpler narrative is clearer and well-organised. The lower half of the painting shows the golden calf and the Israelites worshipping and feasting around it. Just over half way up is Moses on the summit of the mountain, being delivered the tablets with the commandments, and above that is heaven, with the Israelites’ God.

The graven image of the golden calf is being carried with difficulty by four men. Piles of golden jewellery, coins, and chain are still apparently being melted down. Sitting on a rock bench above, under an ornamental awning, are several young women, who are being dressed and prepared for ceremonies to take place with the idol. More people are seen feasting on the grass over to the left.

In the upper section of the painting, Moses is stood on the top of the mountain, his arms outstretched to the sky, ready to receive the tablets containing the commandments. God still holds those, immediately above Moses, and two winged angels are just taking the tablets from him, to pass down to Moses. Around them and above are several other figures, flying around the clouds.

One last remark about these two exceptionally tall paintings: recognising that viewers would have to look up sharply to see their upper sections, Tintoretto projected their figures and other details as if they were ceiling panels. The higher up each canvas you look, the more the figures appear to be above you. That is an ingenious projection to enhance their visual impact.

In 1565, commissioned by the Scuola Grande for its albergo, Tintoretto painted one of the major religious works of the century: his vast Crucifixion, more than 5 metres (17 feet) high, and 12 metres (40 feet) across.

He applied the lessons learned in his tall works for the Madonna dell’Orto. He makes use of space and uses a narrative technique based on the traditional ‘multiplex’ form popular during the Renaissance, in which its single image shows events at more than a single point in time, in an ingenious and modern manner. Naturally, the painting centres on Christ crucified, but the two thieves executed beside him are not shown, as would be traditional, already hanging from their crosses.

Instead, to the right of Christ, the ‘bad’ thief is still being attached to his cross, which rests on the ground. To the left of Christ, the ‘good’ thief is just being raised to the upright position. There is nothing in the well-known gospel accounts to make this anachronistic, but it’s most probable that the crucifixions were more simultaneous.

Spaced out around the canvas are relevant sub-stories from that whole. At the foot of Christ’s cross is his group of mourners, including the Marys. Each of the crosses has attendant workers, busy with the task of conducting the crucifixion, climbing ladders, hauling on lines, and fastening each victim to his cross. This mechanical and human detail brings the scene to life and adds to its credibility, and grim process.

The crowd on the left is more spread out than in an earlier version. In the distance is a flag bearing the letters SPQR representing the Roman Empire, and its link through Pilate. Most faces are turned towards Christ, with their eyes wide in awe.

On the right, in a small rock shelter suggestive of a tomb, two men are gambling with dice. To the right of them, a gravedigger has just started his work with a spade. The ruling class, perhaps Herod himself, have turned up on horseback, and they too stare wide-eyed at Christ.

When the Doge’s Palace, or Palazzo Ducale, in Venice was destroyed by fire in 1577, it took with it a fresco from around 1365 by Guariento. Although initially unsuccessful in obtaining the commission to provide a replacement, with the death of Veronese in 1588, Tintoretto was invited to do so. By this time the artist was seventy, so much of the painting was performed by his son Domenico Robusti.

The room in which this painting was to be hung, the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, is one of the most majestic and imposing in the whole building, and was used for meetings of the Grand Council of Venice, at which it considered legislation and elected the city’s magistrates.

The resulting painting, which is seven metres (almost 23 feet) high and twenty-two metres (72 feet) across, was probably designed by Jacopo and largely entrusted to his son Domenico and the workshop to paint. In conformity with the rules of the commission, its composition focusses on the Coronation of the Virgin, inspired by Dante’s Paradise, as shown in the detail below.

At the top, the Virgin Mary, behind whom is her traditional symbol of the white lily, stands with Jesus Christ, in their matching red and blue robes. Between them is the white dove of the Holy Ghost, and all around are cherubic heads of infant angels. To the right are the scales of justice, also used for the weighing of souls.

Even at the height of his powers, and with his exceptionally fast brushwork, completing such a huge work would have been a major feat for Jacopo.

Paolo Veronese also made a name for himself with his earlier large canvases, but in 1573 exceeded them all in The Feast in the House of Levi, which wasn’t its original title.

Veronese painted this thirteen metre-long (42 feet) scene for the refectory of the Dominican Friary of the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, but it was intended to show the Last Supper, Christ’s last meal with his disciples before he was betrayed and crucified, at which he laid out the sacrament of Communion, a key part of Christian life ever since.

However, he over-reached himself, and the painting was deemed so offensive that he was brought before the Inquisition accused of blasphemy. Thankfully the Inquisition didn’t impose any penalty on Veronese himself, but required that he ‘correct’ the painting within a period of three months. This he did by changing its title, not its content, to The Feast in the House of Levi.

Christ is shown in the centre of the painting, further emphasised by his halo. In addition to the standard row of disciples, Veronese adds a rich collection of other figures, described by the Inquisition as “buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs and other such scurrilities”, more in the manner of a Venetian feast.

These days, mirror play is something you do with babies and infants, but over the last six centuries or so it has also been a feature of many paintings. It all started in the Northern Renaissance, when leading Flemish painters including the van Eycks became fascinated in depicting optical phenomena including reflections in mirrors.

Jan van Eyck’s most famous painting, known as The Arnolfini Wedding (or similar variations), is a remarkable exploration of optics, featuring distorted reflections in the mirror near the centre of the painting, completed in 1434. Between this newly-wed couple holding hands next to their marital bed, in the midline of the painting, is a prominent circular convex mirror. Its reflection shows a view of the room looking in the opposite direction, past the couple to another two figures, who could be the artist and another, as shown in the detail below.

Just over a century later, in about 1545, in Venice, Tintoretto painted Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan. In this unusual interpretation, Vulcan is inspecting his wife, as Mars cowers under the bed at the right. A small dog is drawing attention to Mars’ hiding place, and Venus’ child, Cupid, rests in a cradle behind them. The circular mirror behind the bed reflects an image of Vulcan leaning over Venus, seen in the detail below.

For the pioneering still life painter Clara Peeters in the early years of the seventeenth century, reflections showed her self-portrait.

In her still life with Flowers and Gold Cups of Honour (1612) reflections in the gold cup at the right show her in the act of painting, as seen more clearly in the detail below.

In the middle of that century Diego Velázquez reversed the play in using a reflection to show the subjects of his painting, alongside his self-portrait.

Velázquez’ Las Meninas, translated as The Maids of Honour, from about 1656-57 is a well-known example of a group portrait with mirror play. In what is overtly a depiction of eleven people and a dog in a room in the Alcázar Palace, he uses composition and gaze to tell us more. Much depends on what we believe most of the figures are looking at. Reflected in the rectangular plane mirror on the far wall are King Philip IV and his wife Queen Mariana of Austria, shown in the detail below.

There has been dispute over whether the reflection shows the royal couple stood where the viewer is, or the mirror is reflecting their painted images on Velázquez’s canvas. How their images were generated is probably of secondary importance, as either way the gaze of most of the other figures is clearly directed not at the viewer, but at the King and Queen, who may be getting up to leave after sitting for Velázquez to paint them. In this reading, the most important people not in the painting only appear in reflection and the gaze of others.

Mirror play continued in a few more paintings up to the late nineteenth century.

Domenicus van Wijnen’s Witches’ Sabbath by Moonlight is set in a moonlit Italian landscape. This combines many of the now-classical symbols associated with ‘the dark arts’, and is taking place at an outdoor altar set up at the foot of the gallows, on which a dead body hangs. In front of the altar at the right is a soldier in armour, who is looking in a mirror at the image of another.

In about 1871, Alfred Stevens introduced a large mirror into The Psyché (My Studio). The French word psyché refers to the full-length mirror seen in this apparently informal view of Stevens’ studio, the name deriving from the legend of Cupid and Psyche. For this painting, Stevens doesn’t actually use a proper psyché, but has mounted a large mirror on his easel, perhaps to suggest that art is a reflection of life. A Japanese silk garment is draped over the mirror to limit its view to the model, breaking up her form in an unnatural way.

In the late nineteenth century mirror play became more popular, particularly in the paintings of Pierre Bonnard.

In 2003, the psychologists Marco Bertamini, Richard Latto and Alice Spooner published a paper in which they described a known phenomenon in the perception of paintings, and named it the Venus Effect. Their definition is: “The Venus effect occurs every time the observer sees both an actor (eg Venus) and a mirror, not placed along the observer’s line of sight, and concludes that Venus is seeing her reflection at the same location in the mirror that the observer is seeing.”

Although they dismissed optical “mistakes” as being of less interest, they were intrigued by “the situations in which we as observers read the scene in a certain way, but the mirror itself is used (deliberately or not) to lead us down the wrong path. More specifically, the mirror shows us something that we accept as the view available to the actor in the scene. However, the actor has a different vantage point
from us and therefore the laws of optics imply that he/she cannot be seeing what we see in the mirror.”

In this article, I explore what I believe to be the artist’s intention in this effect, of revealing the face of the subject of a painting in its reflection rather than in the original, a popular form of mirror play.

Frans Floris’s Allegory of Sight was probably painted around 1550, making it an early and quite sophisticated entry to the subject. The face of its figure is shown reflected in the only appropriate optical instrument of the day: a simple mirror, carefully angled to project most of the face. Although only a small feature, that reflection looks fiendishly difficult, given the wildly different angle between the mirror and the picture plane. In this case, what’s shown in the mirror is optically plausible, although the subject is looking at the viewer rather than the reflection.

This painting of Sight has been attributed to Abraham Janssens, and could date to any time between about 1590 and 1632. It appears to have been inspired by Floris’s Allegory of Sight, and the reflection of the woman’s face in the mirror doesn’t appear optically correct. She does appear to be looking at her reflection, although that’s optically impossible.

Hans von Aachen’s David and Bathsheba of about 1612-15 introduces a figure standing behind Bathsheba, holding a mirror in front of her face with his outstretched left arm. A glance at that reflection says that something is seriously amiss: von Aachen has painted a reflection in which Bathsheba is looking to the left, although her face is actually looking to the right. No single plane mirror could ever achieve that optical impossibility.

Although often illustrated by one of Titian’s paintings of Venus, the canonical example must be Velázquez’ Venus at Her Mirror, also known as The Toilet of Venus or the Rokeby Venus, from 1644-48. It shows the goddess Venus, whose face is blurred in a false reflection in a mirror being held by her son Cupid. The theme was common, seen in paintings by Titian and Rubens, with Venus sat upright. Giorgione and others had posed her reclining and facing the viewer, making her pose here unusual. Most other paintings of Venus set her in a landscape: here she rests on luxurious even sensuous fabrics.

No matter how convincing her face might appear in the mirror, a moment spent placing yourself in the same position confirms that the image in the mirror is wholly imaginary, and optically incorrect. Yet, according to Bertamini and others, the majority of viewers succumb to the Venus Effect and believe that Venus is looking at that image of her face.

JW Waterhouse’s Mariana in the South from about 1897 stands her in front of a full-length mirror revealing her face to the viewer, but she too is looking at her own reflection.

Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema’s A Knock at the Door, also from 1897, shows an attractive young woman checking that she is looking at her best in a mirror, before receiving a visitor. Once again it is the reflection that shows her face, and we’re struggling to be sure whether this is optically correct, although in this case the artist has at least brought closer alignment between the two optical axes.

Frederick Carl Frieseke’s Nude Seated at Her Dressing Table (1909) also uses closer alignment to appear more optically plausible, as this nude apparently studies herself in the mirror.

Walter Crane made this watercolour and ink drawing of The Mirror for Arthur Kelly’s The Rosebud and Other Tales, published in 1909. Although there are clear disparities between the alignment of face and chest with their reflection, this too appears plausible.

Lovis Corinth’s At the Mirror from 1912 complicates this further by raising the viewer well above the subject and her reflection, and revealing the artist standing behind her.

There are a few paintings where the artist has overtly declined to employ the Venus Effect.

Tintoretto’s Susannah and the Elders from about 1555 goes further with mirror play. Susannah has been caught as she is drying her leg after bathing in the small pool beside her, looking at herself in a rectangular mirror, which is propped up against a rosy trellis in a secluded part of her garden. Unlike in other paintings of nudes, neither the image seen in the mirror nor the reflection on the water show anything more of Susannah.

This article provides a brief overview of the plot and sub-stories of Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Jerusalem Delivered, with links to individual articles, and some of the very best of the paintings.

Jerusalem Delivered is a fictional elaboration of the events at the end of the first Crusade, starting with the departure from Antioch, after its capture, and ending with the full possession of the city of Jerusalem.

Introduction: A forgotten epic

Historical background

Mounting the First Crusade
Capture of Jerusalem

Jerusalem Delivered

Advance to Emmaus

The crusaders’ leader, Godfrey of Bouillon, is visited early one morning by the Archangel Gabriel, who spurs the French noble to lead his army south to the Holy City. During their journey, they are provisioned by sea, and meet little opposition.

Aladine, ruler of Jerusalem, hears of their progress and starts preparing to receive them. Ismen, formerly a Christian soothsayer now turned to ‘pagan’ sorceror, arranges a trap to oppress the remaining Christians in the city, by having a sacred icon of the Virgin Mary stolen. Aladine attributes this to a Christian and uses it as an excuse to persecute the Christians.

Sophronia, a young Christian woman, tells Aladine she stole the icon, and is condemned to burn at the stake. Her lover Olindo insists that he is the thief, and is tied on the other side of the stake for execution with her. Just as the kindling is about to be lit, the beautiful ‘pagan’ knight Clorinda arrives and intervenes.

Sophronia and Olindo are spared, but Aladine banishes them and all other able-bodied Christians to beyond the city limits. Most flee to Emmaus, where the crusaders have just arrived.

First skirmish and a sorceress

Godfrey of Bouillon politely rejects overtures from two ambassadors of Egypt, inviting him to abandon his mission to capture Jerusalem. One, the Circassian Argante, warns Godfrey of dire consequences before he heads off to join Aladine in Jerusalem.

Soon after the crusaders arrive at the city, Clorinda leads an initial skirmishing party to size up the French forces. Godfrey sends Tancred to support the French, and when he knocks Clorinda’s helmet off, he falls hopelessly in love with her. Inside Jerusalem Erminia, former princess of Antioch, reveals her love for Rinaldo, another of the crusader knights. Argante shows himself to be a fearsome warrior by claiming the life of Dudon.

Godfrey decides a plan of action, and realises his need for a good supply of timber to build siege towers and engines.

The ‘pagan’ wizard Hydrotes sees his beautiful niece Armida, a sorceress herself, as an essential weapon in the campaign, so directs her to sow chaos inside Godfrey’s camp.

Armida tells the crusaders a story of woe, and beguiles many of the finest of Godfrey’s knights to follow her on a fool’s errand.

Erminia flees

In the midst of the chaos wrought by Armida, Rinaldo accuses Gernando of being a liar; they settle this when Rinaldo kills Gernando in a duel. Godfrey condemns Rinaldo to death, and he storms off from the camp. Armida then leads many other knights away on her diversionary mission.

In an attempt to expedite matters, Argante challenges the crusaders in one-to-one combat. Godfrey approves Tancred as the knight to face the Circassian. They fight viciously, wounding one another, but are brought to a halt by nightfall.

Erminia decides to go and tend Tancred’s wounds, so dresses up in Clorinda’s armour and slips out of the city in the dead of night. However, that makes her appear to be Clorinda to the crusaders, and she is forced to flee in panic. Tancred then rides off in pursuit of her, thinking her to be Clorinda. Overnight, both Erminia and Tancred become lost, and fail to find one another.

Erminia happens on a small family of shepherds, who console her, and dress her in their country clothes.

The death of Clorinda

Tancred is trapped in Armida’s magic castle, behind the bars of its dungeon. The following morning, with his combat against Argante due to restart soon after dawn, he is nowhere to be found. Raymond of Toulouse is drawn by lot to fight as his substitute, and proves a match. The devil, though, gets a ‘pagan’ archer to loose an arrow that strikes Raymond without wounding him. At this breach of chivalry, the affronted crusaders and defenders of Jerusalem join battle, which turns bloody until the hand of God intervenes with a massive thunderstorm.

Rinaldo and Tancred are still missing, but the crusaders riot in fear that the former has been killed. Godfrey realises he must attack the city soon.

Arab forces then attack the crusaders by night, which develops into more general battle. Knights return from their mission for Armida, reporting that they had been rescued by Rinaldo, who hadn’t been killed after all. They report that Armida has taken Tancred prisoner.

Godfrey prepares for assault on the city, first celebrating mass on Mount Olivet. The following day the crusaders bring up their siege towers and engines to tackle the walls of Jerusalem, but make slow progress against a strong defence. At nightfall the towers are pulled back, but Clorinda sneaks out of the city and sets alight to the towers, burning them to the ground.

She is caught outside the walls by Tancred, who cannot tell it is her and engages her in combat. Eventually he wounds her mortally, recognises her, and she asks to be baptised before she dies. Tancred does so, and she goes in peace.

Rinaldo abducted by Armida

The wounded Tancred is carried back to his tent.

Ismen enchants the forest which is the crusaders’ only supply of wood, preventing them from cutting replacement timbers for new siege towers. The weather turns oppressively hot and dry, causing crusaders to collapse and die of heat and dehydration. After prayers of the crusaders, the weather breaks and there is heavy rain.

Godfrey has a vision revealing the importance of finding Rinaldo to break the spell so that he can obtain timber again. Charles and Ubaldo leave on a mission to discover Rinaldo. They learn that Armida had originally intended to kill him, but just as she was about to sink her dagger into his sleeping body, she fell in love with him and abducted him instead.

Armida’s Garden

With the help of a wizard, Charles and Ubaldo sail in a magic ship to the Fortunate Isles. Overcoming various obstacles, they see the couple together in Armida’s garden, where Rinaldo has clearly become Armida’s dandy, and no warrior knight.

Rinaldo retrieved

Showing Rinaldo his image in a polished shield, Charles and Ubaldo get him to see how he has changed, and to return to the siege of Jerusalem with them.

Armida first tries to lure him back, then weeps, and finally departs in rage in her own chariot, to wreak vengeance.

Into Jerusalem

Rinaldo is reunited with Godfrey, who asks him to solve the problem of the enchanted wood. Rinaldo enters the wood and breaks Ismen’s spell, enabling timbers to be felled to build fresh siege towers.

Meanwhile, the King of Egypt is leading a massed army towards the crusaders at Jerusalem. Joining him is Armida with forces provided by her evil uncle. There are several volunteers who promise to kill Rinaldo in return for her hand in marriage. The King of Egypt also plots how he will kill Godfrey using deception. Those plans are discovered by a crusader spy, Vafrine.

With new towers built, Godfrey resumes the assault on Jerusalem before the Egyptian forces are due to arrive. Rinaldo, Tanred, Godfrey and others lead the ascent of the walls, and crusaders enter the city, where they quickly start massacring its ‘pagan’ defenders.

Argante and Tancred agree to conclude their previous combat beyond the city walls. After a bitter fight, in which both men are badly wounded, Tancred finishes the Circassian off, then collapses at dusk.

Vafrine has completed his mission spying on the Egyptian forces when he is recognised by Erminia, who wants to defect to the crusader camp. On their way back, they stumble across Argante’s body, then the wounded Tancred.

Erminia cuts tresses from her hair to make improvised bandages for Tancred’s wounds, and he is taken into Jerusalem for further care. Vafrine goes on to brief Godfrey of the Egyptians’ plans, to help him plan his defence.

Delivery

The Egyptian army arrives late the following day, but Godfrey won’t be rushed, and battle commences at dawn the next day. Egyptians wearing false colours as crusaders get close to Godfrey but are quickly recognised and killed.

As the battle rages on, Rinaldo sees Armida as an archer in her chariot, but passes her by to continue fighting. She struggles to loose her arrows at him, and those that she does shoot, bounce off ineffectively. With the Egyptian forces in full retreat and their leaders all dead, Armida flees on one of her horses.

Rinaldo catches her, just as she is about to stab herself with one of her own arrows in a bid to end her life. She swoons into his arms, he cries with pity for her, and Rinaldo promises to be her servant and her champion.

With the ‘pagan’ armies defeated and departed, Godfrey now leads his crusaders into the city as the sun sets. He goes to the Temple, having fulfilled his vow to deliver Jerusalem.

Leading characters

References

Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.

Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).

Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).

Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.

Over the last three months I have illustrated a summary of Torquato Tasso’s epic Jerusalem Delivered, concluding that last week. To draw this to a close, this article considers the stories and fate of its six leading characters.

The three leading men are Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince Tancred, and Rinaldo. The leading women are Clorinda the ‘pagan’ knight, Princess Erminia of Antioch, and Armida the sorceress. One fact is immediately apparent: Tasso’s heroes are all crusaders, but the heroines all ‘pagans’, supposedly their enemies.

Godfrey of Bouillon

According to Tasso, the hero of heroes was Godfrey of Bouillon, who led the crusaders to a remarkable victory. Current historical analysis differs: despite the astonishing success of the crusaders at Jerusalem, at no time did they appear to have a single person in overall command, and much of their success was due to Count Raymond of Toulouse rather than Godfrey.

As with Tasso’s poetry, the paintings of Godfrey portray him as a pious warrior, as in this section of Johann Friedrich Overbeck’s magnificent frescoes in the Casa Massimo in Rome. Here The Archangel Gabriel Appears to Godfrey of Bouillon, reminding him of the pressing need to get on with the delivery of the Holy City.

This is reiterated in Overbeck’s Consecration of Godfrey, where Peter the Hermit stands holding the crucifix, as Godfrey, still wearing his armour, sinks on bended knee.

As a pious knight and leader, Godfrey never succumbs to the temptations offered by Armida. As far as we’re told, he remains pure and celibate in both body and mind, his sole mission being to deliver the city.

Tancred and Rinaldo are very different, hot-blooded young knights who fight like there’s no tomorrow, and engage in amorous adventures that get about as explicit as you’ll encounter in literature of this period. But their relationships are each unusual.

Tancred and Clorinda

Clorinda, one of two women warriors featured by Tasso (the other being Gildippe, a crusader), is in love at first sight with Tancred.

Clorinda is portrayed from her arrival as upholding the standards of chivalry, fighting ferociously but fairly, and being morally sound. She first arrives on her charger and holds up her right hand to tell those about to burn Olindo and Sophronia at the stake to hold fire, and quickly secures their release.

She has a vindictive streak, though, which becomes apparent when she decides to torch the wooden siege towers after the first day’s assault on the city walls. This backfires when she is caught outside those walls by Tancred; knowing it’s him, she forces him to fight, resulting in her death.

Predictably perhaps for a Catholic of his age, Tasso ends this part of the story with her baptism in the moments before her death, shown so brilliantly in Domenico Tintoretto’s Tancred Baptizing Clorinda of about 1585. Tasso also provides details of Clorinda’s ‘unfortunate’ upbringing outside the Christian faith of her mother, reinforcing that her sacrifice in battle was to her ultimate benefit in life after death, a thoroughly moralising thread.

Erminia and Tancred

From the outset Erminia is noble, cultured, and in love with Tancred, who had treated her well after the fall of Antioch and the slaughter of the rest of her family. But her love for Tancred isn’t returned: he’s smitten by Clorinda instead.

Mattia Preti’s undated portrait of Erminia, Princess of Antioch expresses well Tasso’s descriptions of her.

This unfortunate threesome doesn’t unravel until after Clorinda’s death. Before that, following the first round of the duel between Tancred and Argante, it becomes more complex. Seeing Tancred wounded in that battle, Erminia leaves the city of Jerusalem wearing Clorinda’s armour. Although that provides her passport to exit the city, she is recognised as Clorinda by crusaders, and is forced to flee from her bid to tend to her beloved Tancred.

That sets up an almost comical situation, in which Tancred leaves the crusaders’ camp in pursuit of a woman he thinks is Clorinda, whom he loves, who is in fact Erminia (who loves him) wearing Clorinda’s armour.

Eugène Delacroix shows this in his Erminia and the Shepherds of 1859, a detail of which I show above. Here is Erminia dressed as Clorinda, with Tancred erroneously in pursuit, heading for trouble in Armida’s magic castle.

Tasso doesn’t develop this confusion any further, but picks up the one-sided relationship again when Argante is dead and Tancred badly wounded, outside Jerusalem. Erminia gets her chance to revive the ailing Tancred, sacrificing her tresses to fabricate improvised bandages.

This is shown best in Alessandro Turchi’s Erminia Finds the Wounded Tancred (c 1630). We are left in suspense over the further development, even consummation, of this relationship.

Armida and Rinaldo

By far the most complex of Tasso’s characters is Armida. The niece of a ‘pagan’ ruler and sorceror Hydrotes, her mission is to wreak havoc in the crusader camp, so destroying command, unity and morale, as she does so effectively.

But Tasso is ambiguous about Armida, and early on reveals some of the complexity of her character. In a lyrical passage about a rose in her garden, Tasso’s poetry inspired Marie Spartali Stillman’s exquisite watercolour of A Rose in Armida’s Garden from 1894.

Having literally seduced many of the crusaders, led them astray, and sold them into slavery, she gets her hands on Rinaldo, who has stormed off under Godfrey’s over-zealous sentence of death. Although Prince Tancred (whom she also imprisons for a while) is one of the crusaders’ finest knights, Tasso repeatedly shows Rinaldo as the most valiant of all. That’s probably the result of Rinaldo being a fictional ancestor of Tasso’s patron.

Armida’s original plan was to beguile Rinaldo and murder him, but she falls in love and devises a more mutually satisfying fate: she abducts him to her enchanted garden, where he becomes her on-call gigolo.

Francesco Hayez in his Rinaldo and Armida from 1812-13 is almost as explicit as Tasso’s lines in depicting their relationship. It’s only Charles and Ubaldo who save Rinaldo from a life of empty pleasure, making love not war, achieved by getting the knight to see himself for what he has become in his self-reflection.

Hell hath no greater fury than Armida spurned: with her lover’s departure, she joins forces with the King of Egypt to exact her vengeance, being promised Rinaldo’s head on a plate, in the manner of John the Baptist’s for Salome (although that reinterpretation didn’t become popular until the late nineteenth century).

The last great battle to secure Jerusalem, which is probably based on the crusaders’ battle at Ascalon, is thus not just between Godfrey and the King of Egypt, representing the forces of God and those of the devil, but a personal feud between Armida and Rinaldo.

That concludes with Armida in despair, trying to take her own life with one of Cupid’s symbolic bolts of love, and her rescue by Rinaldo. He then promises to be her servant and her champion, in the hope that true faith will be revealed and convert her to Christianity.

Armida has often been compared to Circe and other sorceresses who anticipated the more modern concept of the femme fatale. Tasso’s Armida is still more complex, and the fate of her relationship with Rinaldo left open to speculation.

References

Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.

Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).

Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).

Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.