Even the _Gerusalemme_, became an object of derision.
It transpired that the revisers, to whom he had confided it, were picking the poem to pieces; ignoramuses who could not scan a line, went about parroting their pedantries and strictures.

At the beginning of 1576 Tasso had begged Alfonso to give him the post of historiographer left vacant by Pigna.

It was his secret hope that this would be refused, and that so he would obtain a good excuse for leaving Ferrara.[27] But the duke granted his request.

In the autumn of that year, one of the band of his tormentors, Maddalo de'Frecci, betrayed some details of his love-affairs.

What these were we do not know.