Note 191 — BOOK VII[145]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
Giovanni Battista Manso, Marchese Della Villa (1561-1645). Milton was ambitious of his acquaintance, as the friend of Tasso, and was introduced to him in Naples in 1638. To him Milton addressed his Latin epistle, Ad Mansum; Tasso had addressed his dialogue on Friendship to him and complimented him in the twentieth canto of the Gerusalemme Conquistata, as the introduction to Ad Mansum shows:
"Joannes Baptista Mansus, Marchio Villensi, vir ingenii laude, turn literarum studio necnon et bellica virtute, apud Italos clarus in primus est; ad quern Torquati Tassi Dialogus extat di Amicitia scriptus; erat enim Tassi amicissimus; ab quo etiam inter Campanile principes celebratur, in ilio poemate cui titulus 'Gerusalemme Conquistata,' lib. 20.
Fra cavalier magnanimi, è cortesi Risplende il Manso.
"Is auctorem Neapoli commorantem summa benevolentia prosecutus est, multaque ei detulit humanitalis officia: ad hunc itaque hospes ille, antequam ab ea urbe discederet, ut ne ingratum se ostenderet hoc carmen misit."—T.