In a corner of Piazza Tasso, at the intersection of Corso Italia and Via Pietà, you can admire the statue dedicated to the Sorrentine poet of the same name.
Torquato Tasso, renowned for his epic poem “Gerusalemme liberata” (1581), was born in Sorrento in 1544.
The realization of the statue encountered quite a few challenges from the very beginning.
Documents from the nineteenth century tell of an initial proposal to commission an effigy dedicated to the poet in the very early years of the 19th century.
However, due to political disorders of a general nature and the failure to reach local agreements, the realization and subsequent installation of a monument dedicated to Tasso never materialized.
In 1861, an agreement was finally reached, and in 1870, the statue we see today was inaugurated, made by the sculptor Gennaro Calì.
Initially lacking any inscription, the historian Bartolomeo Capasso had the inscription that we can all read added at the base of the statue
Historical sources also tell us that initially, the statue was supposed to be placed in the center of the new Piazza Torquato.
Not everyone knows, in fact, that Piazza Tasso as we see it today is actually the subsidiary of the ancient Largo Castello.
Here stood an Aragonese fortress, guarding the city, which was demolished between 1840 and 1842 to make way for the new square and Corso Duomo (now Corso Italia).
Due to a structural failure of the square itself (created by filling in the underlying Vallone dei Mulini), however, the statue was placed in the space in front of the historic Fauno bar.
It was moved again to the space where Bar Ercolano is now located before being definitively placed where we admire it today.
In 2014, the statue underwent a significant restoration intervention – carried out by Fondazione Sorrento – primarily aimed at cleaning the marbles from the damage caused over time by urban pollution.
