He belonged less to the Renaissance, more to the culture of the age created by the Council of Trent, than did Tasso.
His life, in many of its details similar, in others most dissimilar, to that of Tasso, illustrates and helps us in some measure to explain the latter.

It must therefore form the subject of a somewhat detailed study.
Guarini drew his blood on the paternal side from the illustrious humanist Guarino of Verona, who settled at Ferrara in the fifteenth century as tutor to Leonello d'Este.[176] By his mother he claimed descent from the Florentine house of Machiavelli.

Born in 1537, he was seven years older than Torquato Tasso, whom he survived eighteen years, not closing his long life until 1612.

He received a solid education both at Pisa and Padua, and was called at the early age of eighteen to profess moral philosophy in the University of Ferrara.

Being of noble birth and inheriting a considerable patrimony, Guarini might have enjoyed a life of uninterrupted literary leisure, if he had chosen to forego empty honors and shun the idle distractions of Courts.