Between Adventure and Poetry

The extraordinary beauty of the landscape, the mild weather and the renomated gastronomic tradition of Sorrento and its Peninsula have always attracted men of letters and artists from every part of Italy, of Europe and of the world.

It was in spring 1543, when Bernardo Tasso an intellectual and a poet of Bergamo, who was at the time secretary of the Prince of Salerno Ferrante Sanseverino, decided to move with his wife Porzia de' Rossi, exactly to Sorrento "a very remote and a very comfortable place for the health of the soul and of the body".

A nice house on a cliff overlooking the sea was chosen as their domicile, nearby the Convent of San Francesco. In that home, overlooking the Gulf of Naples, in 1544 was born our great poet (on March 11 at 10 a.m.) and he was christened, with a grand ceremony, in the nearby cathedral of Sorrento.

Since he was small, Torquato demonstrated a great sensitivity and a sublime intelligence. Everything, which surrounds him, spurs his senses and urges him to the poetry. The singing of the seagulls, the shattering of the waves, the voices of the fishermen, the extraordinary lit up colours of the sunsets, the thousands of shades of green of the hillsides, the odours and the flavours of the cuisine.

At first to follow the destiny of his father, then trying to calm down his restless soul, his life is a continuous roaming among the principal Italian cities.

In Venice he prints, at the age of 18, the poem of chivalry "Rinaldo" his first important success. From 1565 he is in Ferrara, first at the service of the Cardinal Luigi d'Este and then, in 1572, of the Duke Alfonso II, brother of the prelate.

With the protection of the Estensi he matures and publishes his two most famous masterpieces: the pastoral tale “Aminta” the epic poem of chivalry "Gerusalemme Liberata", finished in 1575.

In concomitance with the success of "Gerusalemme Liberata", however, the mind of the poet begins to vacillate and advance towards the dark mazes of madness. Having become very dangerous, the Duke Alfonso is obliged to lock him up in the ducal castle. His poetry, in the meantime, continues to run from one court to another, gathering everywhere great success, so much that the Pope Clemente VIII wants him in Rome to confer him the honour of the poetical crown. The coronation ceremony, though, cannot take place due to the worsened health conditions of the poet that, on April 25th 1595, at only 51 years old, unfortunately dies in the monastery of Sant’Onofrio in Rome, where his tomb is still there.

A tragic and afflicted spirit, Torquato Tasso, is the greatest poet of the sixteenth century, the person who Goethe described as "the most noble incarnation of the Italian genius".

It is exactly in honour of this great poet born on this coast, that the Restaurant Tasso wants to pay tribute from the insignia. Creativity and delicacy, poetry and refinement are the talents of our renowned citizen to whom we inspire to offer a service and a gastronomy, which satisfy the taste and the sight, the fantasy and the emotions.