Tasso announces in the opening verses that he will sing of “l’arme pietose e ‘l capitano / che ‘l gran sepolcro liberò di Cristo” (“the reverent armies and the captain who liberated Christ’s great sepulcher” (GL 1.1). The poem then gives life to several leading historical figures from the First Crusade (e.g., Peter the Hermit, Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin, the Norman Tancred, Raymond of Toulouse) as it draws narrative details from the siege of Antioch and Jerusalem in early Crusading chronicles, in particular William of Tyre’s influential history that had been recently translated into Italian (Historia della guerra sacra di Gierusalemme della terra di promissione e quasi di tutta la Soria …
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Citation: Cavallo, Jo Ann. "Gerusalemme liberata". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 June 2015 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4308, accessed 21 November 2024.]
