14 May, 1595 - Tasso's Melancholy

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 14 of maye 1595 ... R at tasso ... xx^s 

In modern English: 14^th May, 1595 ... Received at Tasso ... 20 shillings

Tasso in the Madhouse
by Eugene Delacroix (1839)

Today, for the very last time, the Admiral's Men returned to Tasso's Melancholy, a lost play that dramatized the lovesick insanity of the Italian poet Torquato Tasso; you can read more about it in the entry for 13th August.

Tasso's Melancholy has not been staged for over three months, but today the company has decided to bring it back. But they will decide that the effort was not worth it, for this is the last time the mad poet will appear at the Rose. Tasso was staged 12 times in total, and while its box office was never stunning, it was rarely catastrophic either.

Just for the sake of it, here's a graph comparing its fortunes with those of The Venetian Comedy, whose performances began and ended at around the same time.

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

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