Torquato Tasso (11 March 1544 – 25 April 1595) is an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered, 1580), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem.

He suffers from mental illness and dies a few days before he is due to be crowned as the king of poets by the Pope.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe.