Four episodes from Torquato Tasso's epic poem provide images and acts that frequently appear in poems, paintings, theater and more.

In Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1582), love and war are intertwined: the Christian knights long for the Muslim women warriors, the men become feminine, the women disguise themselves as men to fight. A Christian epic, the poem is also a repertoire of "image-affects" transposed into painting, music, dance, and theater throughout Europe. Giovanni Careri traces a network of cultural exchanges, studying their political implications in the ritual life of the court. These sexual and cultural hybridizations create subtle correspondences with our present condition. Paintings by Poussin, the Carraccis, Guercino, Domenico Tintoretto, and Tiepolo.