 In the autumn of 1576 Tasso quarrelled with a Ferrarese gentleman, Maddalo, who had talked too freely about some same-sex love affair; the same year he wrote a letter to his homosexual friend Luca Scalabrino dealing with his own love for a 21-year-old young man Orazio Ariosto; in the summer of 1577 he drew his knife upon a servant in the presence of Lucrezia d'Este, duchess of Urbino.For this excess he was arrested; but the duke released him, and took him for a change of air to his country seat of Villa Belriguardo.What happened there is not known.