In 1557 his father sent for him to Pesaro, and Tasso made his first entrance into a Court at the age of thirteen.

This event decided the future of his existence.

Urbino was not what it had been in the time of Duke Federigo, or when Castiglione composed his Mirror of the Courtier on its model.

Yet it retained the old traditions of gentle living, splendor tempered by polite culture, aristocratic urbanity refined by arts and letters.

The evil days of Spanish manners and Spanish bigotry, of exhausted revenues and insane taxation, were but dawning; and the young prince, Francesco Maria, who was destined to survive his heir and transfer a ruined duchy to the mortmain of the Church, was now a boy of eight years old.