Great though his errors were, and wayward as was his temper, he was a man of whom his country had reason to be proud, and it is pleasing to be able to narrate that he was destined to receive a tardy recognition for all the works with which he had enriched the literature of Italy. Cardinal Aldobrandini had been raised to the Papal Chair and had assumed the name of Clement VIII, and he and his nephews were anxious to signalise his Pontificate by reviving the Coronation of Petrarch in the Capitol in favour of a poet not less illustrious and more unfortunate. Accordingly, Tasso was summoned to Rome, and he was met outside the gates by an immense concourse of people and a brilliant galaxy of Cardinals, Prelates, and Nobles. But his frame was worn out, and the excitement of this great reception hardly infused sufficient animation to conceal from the bystanders the rapid approach of death. He was lodged in a noble suite of apartments in the Vatican; the poet who for so many years had been doomed to a madman's cell, found himself an honoured guest in the Palace of the Popes.
But the state and ceremony with which he was surrounded were more than his ebbing strength could bear. Religious feelings had always held powerful sway over his sensitive mind, and now, when he felt his end drawing near, he retired to the Monastery of Sant' Onofrio, situated on an eminence outside the town. Here, in prayer and meditation, he devoutly awaited release from all his sorrows. The monks tended him with care and assiduity; but it is recorded of him that his old suspicions revived by fits and starts, and on one occasion he made his attendant swallow the medicine he was directed to take in order to have ocular proof that it was not poisoned.
Worn out by his many sufferings, he passed away peacefully on the twenty-fifth of April, 1595, the day before he was to receive the laurel in the Capitol. But he probably did not regret that death prevented him from enjoying this symbol of greatness. As Leopardi, himself no less familiar with sorrow, beautifully says:
"Morte domanda Chi nostro mal conobbe, e non ghirlanda."
There is a peculiar fitness in the circumstance that a poet, so singled out for misfortune, was not destined to wear the wreath of a conqueror. Peaceful after so much agitation, calm after such bitter resentment, he sank to rest in that secluded monastery, and for thirteen years he lay in the Church adjoining the quiet cloisters without a stone to mark his resting-place, until Cardinal Bonifazio Bevilacqua raised a noble monument to his memory, which may still be seen by the visitor who wends his way to Sant' Onofrio to pay the tribute of a sigh to so much glory linked to so much misfortune.