A 'vision splendid' dawned upon his mind; and every step he made in knowledge and in mastery of language enforced the delightful conviction that 'I too am a poet.' Nothing in Tasso's character was more tenacious than the consciousness of his vocation and the kind of self-support he gained from it.

Like the melancholy humor which degenerated into madness, this sense of his own intellectual dignity assumed extravagant proportions, passed over into vanity, and encouraged him to indulge fantastic dreams of greatness.

Yet it must be reckoned as a mitigation of his suffering; and what was solid in it at the period of which I now am writing, was the certainty of his rare gifts for art.
The Roman residence was broken by Bernardo's journey to Urbino in quest of the appointment he expected from Duke Guidubaldo.

He sent Torquato with his cousin Cristoforo meanwhile to Bergamo, where the boy enjoyed a few months of sympathy and freedom.

This appears to have been the only period of his life in which Tasso experienced the wholesome influences of domesticity.