Only four of his sonnets exist.  A translation of these is given in Cooke’s Guide Book to Browning.  There is no authentic record of such a “century of sonnets” having ever existed.

10.  Tradition is dim and uncertain as to the identity of this love of Raphael’s.

27. =Guido Reni= (1576-1642).  A celebrated Italian painter.  Berdoe says that the volume owned by Guido Reni was a collection of a hundred drawings by Raphael.

32-33. =Dante= (1265-1321).  The greatest of Italian poets.  His Divina Commedia, consisting of the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, is his most famous work.  His romantic passion for Beatrice (pronounced B[=a]-[.a]-tr[=e]-che) is referred to in his Divina Commedia, and is recounted in his Vita Nuova.

37-43.  In allusion to the fact that Dante freely consigned his enemies, political and personal, living or dead, to appropriate places in his Inferno and Purgatorio.

45-48.  This interruption of his work is described in the thirty-fifth section of the Vita Nuova.  The hostile nature of the visit seems to be of Browning’s invention.—­COOKE.

57. =Bice=.  Beatrice.

74 ff.  In allusion to Moses smiting the rock and bringing forth water.  See Exodus, chapter xvii.

95. =Egypt’s flesh-pots=.  See Exodus, chapter xvi.

97. =Sinai’s cloven brilliance=.  See Exodus, chapter six. 16-25.

101. =Jethro’s daughter=, Zipporah.  See Exodus, chapters ii and xviii.

136. =Cleon=.  See the poem of that name. =Norbert=.  See In a Balcony.

138. =Lippo=.  See Fra Lippo Lippi.

150. =Samminiato=.  San Miniato, a church in Florence.

160. =Mythos=.  In reference to the myths of Endymion, the mortal with whom the goddess Diana (the moon) fell in love.  See a classical dictionary, and Keats’s poem Endymion.

163. =Zoroaster=.  The founder of the Persian religion.  Reference is here made to his observations of the heavenly bodies while meditating on religious things.

164. =Galileo= (1564-1642).  The great Italian physicist and astronomer.

165. =Keats=.  See note on line 160.

174. =Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu=.  See Exodus, chapter xxiv.

186.  Compare the idea in My Star.

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[Illustration:  ROBERT BROWNING.]