1847,” as Mr Gosse records what was told to him by Browning, “their breakfast being over, Mrs Browning went upstairs, while her husband stood at the window watching the street till the table should be cleared.  He was presently aware of someone behind him, although the servant was gone.  It was Mrs Browning who held him by the shoulder to prevent his turning to look at her, and at the same time pushed a packet of papers into the pocket of his coat.  She told him to read that, and to tear it up if he did not like it; and then she fled again to her own room.”  The papers were a transcript of those ardent poems which we know as “Sonnets from the Portuguese.”  Some copies were printed at Reading in 1847 for private circulation with the title “Sonnets by E.B.B.”  The later title under which they appeared among Mrs Browning’s Poems in the edition of 1850 was of Browning’s suggestion.  His wife’s proposal to name them “Sonnets from the Bosnian” was dismissed with words which allude to a poem of hers, “Catarina to Camoens,” that had long been specially dear to him:  “Bosnian, no! that means nothing.  From the Portuguese:  they are Catarina’s sonnets!”

Pisa with all its charm lacked movement and animation.  It was decided to visit Florence in April, and there enjoy for some days the society of Mrs Jameson before she left Italy.  The coupe of the diligence was secured, and on April 20th Mrs Jameson’s “wild poets but wise people” arrived at Florence.  An excellent apartment was found in the Via delle Belle Donne near the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, and for Browning’s special delight a grand piano was hired.  When Mrs Browning had sufficiently recovered strength to view the city and its surroundings her pleasure was great:  “At Pisa we say, ‘How beautiful!’ here we say nothing; it is enough if we can breathe.”  They had hoped for summer wanderings in Northern Italy; but Florence held them throughout the year except for a few days during which they attempted in vain to find a shelter from the heat among the pines of Vallombrosa.  Provided with a letter of recommendation to the abbot they set forth from their rooms at early morning by vettura and from Pelago onwards, while Browning rode, Mrs Browning and Wilson in basket sledges were slowly drawn towards the monastery by white bullocks.  A new abbot, a little holy man with a red face, had been recently installed, who announced that in his nostrils “a petticoat stank.”  Yet in the charity of his heart he extended the three days ordinarily permitted to visitors in the House of Strangers to five; during which period beef and oil, malodorous bread and wine and passages from the “Life of San Gualberto” were vouchsafed to heretics of both sexes; the mountains and the pinewoods in their solemn dialect spoke comfortable words.