Diplomatic personae: Torquato Tasso on the ambassador

This article examines Torquato Tasso’s Il Messaggiero [The Messenger] (1582), by focusing on the political subject matter, as discussed in the final part of the text through an imaginary dialogue, that is, the figure of the ambassador, the framework of his office and its relationship with power. Tasso’s dialogue features the nature of the ambassador as a figure incarnating his own ‘self’, while simultaneously representing his prince and acting on his own behalf within a specific political context, an external dimension, namely, the ‘international’. Such a condition of alienation is one of the origins of the office’s ‘conflicting obligations’ toward the prince and toward its conciliatory function. We should indeed discuss the diplomatic personae or a divided persona. Tasso rejects the concept of the ambassador as a mere executor of policy, which is a striking departure from the previous general conception of the ambassador. The paradoxical conclusion that emerges is that the messenger, or the ambassador, is not a simple messenger. Tasso’s text and its context is the article’s epicentre. However, this article concerns the possible links between certain ideas and discourses regarding the ambassador’s persona and the growth of diplomacy as a part of the rise of the ‘international’.