Jerusalem Delivered

Jerusalem Delivered (Italian: La Gerusalemme liberata [la dʒeruzaˈlɛmme libeˈraːta]) is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, first published in 1581, that tells a largely mythified version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to take Jerusalem. The poem is composed of 1,917 stanzas in ottava rima (15,336 hendecasyllabic lines), grouped into twenty cantos of varying length.