What passed between him and the Grand Duke is not apparent.

Yet he seems to have still further complicated his position by making political disclosures which were injurious to the Duke of Ferrara.

Nor did he gain anything by the offer of his services and his poem to Francesco de'Medici.

In a letter of February 4, 1576, the Grand Duke wrote that the Florentine visit of that fellow, 'whether to call him a mad or an amusing and astute spirit, I hardly know,'[23] had been throughout a ridiculous affair; and that nothing could be less convenient than his putting the _Gerusalemme_ up to auction among princes.

One year later, he said bluntly that 'he did not want to have a madman at his Court.'[24] Thus Tasso, like his father, discovered that a noble poem, the product of his best pains, had but small substantial value.