Rinaldo and Armida

In 1586 Vincenzo Gonzaga, heir to the duchy of Mantua, obtained the release of the poet Torquato Tasso from the Ferrara hospital where he had been confined for seven years, and took him to Mantua. Around 1620 Vincenzo's son Ferdinando, now duke, ordered this canvas from Domenichino, and its subject comes from Tasso's epic, Jerusalem Delivered. The sorceress Armida has carried the crusader Rinaldo off to her enchanted garden. He lies against her and holds up a mirror while she arranges her hair, as the poem describes, she looking into the glass and he looking at her. Two helmeted knights, sent to bring him back to the war, spy from the trees, one with a finger to his lips. The red parrot in the branches comes from the poem too, a bird that sings in Armida's garden. Louis XIV bought the picture in 1685.