12-57.] The _Rinaldo_ was a very remarkable production for a young man of eighteen.

It showed the poet in possession of his style and displayed the specific faculties of his imagination.

Nothing remained for Tasso now but to perfect and develop the type of art which he had there created.

Soon after his first settlement in Ferrara, he began to meditate a more ambitious undertaking.

His object was to produce the heroic poem for which Italy had long been waiting, and in this way to rival or surpass the fame of Ariosto.