Gerusalemme liberata/Jerusalem Delivered

Epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, published in 1581. Its subject is the climax of the First Crusade, the siege and conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 by the army of Godfrey of Boulogne. The Christians defeat the many stratagems of the Saracens and the poem concludes as Godfrey leads the triumphant crusaders to the Holy Sepulchre. These historical events provide the framework for the adventures of the central character, Rinaldo, a Christian knight.

To the historical participants – Godfrey, Baldwin, Tancred, Raymond of Toulouse, Bohemond, Peter the Hermit, and Solyman, Sultan of Nicaea – Tasso added fictional characters: Rinaldo (introduced as the ancestor of the d'Este family), the enchantress Armida, and also several women, notably Clorinda and Erminia, who are romantically involved with Tancred.

It was translated into English in 1594 and 1600 and influenced parts of Spenser's Faerie Queene.

Although he had completed his epic by 1575, Tasso remained dissatisfied and the poem underwent several revisions after its first publication. Retitled Gerusalemme conquistata/Jerusalem Retaken, the last of these revisions appeared in 1593.

Like Boiardo and Ariosto, his predecessors at the Este court in Ferrara, Tasso wrote in ottava rima, aiming to produce a Christian epic founded in history without, however, abandoning the appeal of the chivalric and marvellous elements (materia cavalleresca) of earlier romances based on the legends of King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Roland.