Digital Commons Network^™

Montaigne’S Italy: Madness, Melancholy And The Enigma Of Italy, Ayesha Ramachandran

Ayesha Ramachandran

This essay re-examines the question of Montaigne’s view of contemporary Italy and Italians by focusing on his allusions to Tasso in the Essais. It places Montaigne’s Italianism in the context of the virulent anti-Italian polemics in France in the 1570s and 1580s, and argues that his strategic choice of Tasso as an emblem for Italy, following his tour of the peninsula in 1580 to 1581, points to a conflicted, deeply ambivalent perspective on Franco-Italian relations in the late 16th century. In the Essais, Tasso and Italy become associated with brilliance and decay, madness and tragic decline.