Alessandro Tassoni

Alessandro Tassoni (1565–1635) was a poet and critic from Modena. Born into a noble family, he studied at Bologna, Pisa and Ferrara and spent much of his life in the service of cardinals and princes in Rome and Savoy. He was a combative writer: his Considerazioni sopra le Rime del Petrarca (1609) criticised Petrarch and his imitators, and his Pensieri diversi (1612) questioned received opinion on many subjects.

His best-known work, La secchia rapita (The Rape of the Bucket), published in 1622, is generally regarded as the first Italian mock-heroic epic. Built on a real medieval quarrel between Modena and Bologna that began over a wooden bucket carried off from a well, it sets the gods of Olympus, grand battles and high speeches against comically petty motives. It strongly influenced later mock-epics such as Boileau's Le Lutrin and Pope's Rape of the Lock. James Atkinson's English version appeared in 1825.