He was immediately put under arrest, and confined in a room of the castle.

Next day Maffeo Veniero wrote thus to the Grand Duke of Tuscany about the incident.

'Yesterday Tasso was imprisoned for having drawn a knife upon a servant in the apartment of the Duchess of Urbino.

The intention has been to stay disorder and to cure him, rather than to inflict punishment.

He suffers under peculiar delusions, believing himself guilty of heresy and dreading poison; which state of mind arises, I incline to think, from melancholic blood forced in upon the heart and vaporing to the brain.