een him
and Palma (Cunizza) appears in due time as a poetical affinity,
strongest on her side, and which determines her to see him restored to
his rightful place. Palma's subsequent marriage with Richard, Count of
San Bonifacio, serves to justify the idea of an engagement to him,
ratified by her father before his retirement from the world, and which
she and Salinguerra conspire to break, the one from love of Sordello,
the other in the interests of her House. Eccelino's real assumption of
the monastic habit after Adelaide's death is represented as in part
caused by remorse--for Salinguerra is his old and faithful ally, and he
has connived at the wrong done to him in the concealment of his son; and
his return to the Guelph connexion from which his daughter has sprung,
as a general disclaimer of his second wife's views.

The Lombard League also figures in the story, as the consequence of
Salinguerra's and Palma's conspiracy against San Bonifacio; though it
also appears as brought about by the historic course of events.
Salinguerra, under cover of military reprisals, has entrapped the Count
into Ferrara, and detained him there, at the moment when he was expected
to meet his lady-love in his own city of Verona. Verona prepares to
resent this outrage on its Prince, and with it, the other States which
represent the Guelph cause; and when Palma--seizing her
opportunity--summons Sordello thither in his character of her minstrel,
and reveals to him her projects for him and for herself, their interview
is woven into the historical picture of a great mediaeval city suddenly
called to arms. What Sordello sees when he goes with Palma to Ferrara,
belongs to the history of all mediaeval warfare; and his sudden and
premature death revives the historical tradition though in a new form.
The intermediate details of his minstrel's career are of course
imaginary; but his struggle to increase the expressiveness of his mother
tongue again records a fact.

I have mentioned such accessible authorities as Sismondi and the
"Biographie Universelle," because they _are_ accessible: not from any
idea that they give the measure of Mr. Browning's knowledge of his
subject. He prepared himself for writing "Sordello" by studying all the
chronicles of that period of Italian history which the British Museum
supplied; and we may be sure that every event he alludes to as
historical, is so in spirit, if not in the letter; while such details as
come under the