The book proved to be one of those contemporary records of famous trials which were not uncommon in Italy, and which are said to be still preserved in many Italian libraries.  It contained the printed pleadings for and against the accused, the judicial sentence, and certain manuscript letters describing the efforts made on Guido’s behalf and his final execution.  This book (with a contemporary pamphlet which Browning afterwards met with in London) supplied the outlines of the poem to which it helped to give a name.

The story itself is a tragic one, rich in material for artistic handling, though not for the handling of every artist.  But its importance is relatively inconsiderable.  “I fused my live soul and that inert stuff,” says the poet, and

               “Thence bit by bit I dug
      The ingot truth, that memorable day,
      Assayed and knew my piecemeal gain was gold,—­
      Yes; but from something else surpassing that,
      Something of mine which, mixed up with the mass,
      Makes it bear hammer and be firm to file. 
      Fancy with fact is just one fact the more;
      To-wit, that fancy has informed, transpierced,
      Thridded and so thrown fast the facts else free,
      As right through ring and ring runs the djereed
      And binds the loose, one bar without a break.”

The story, in brief, is this.  Pompilia, the supposed daughter of Pietro and Violante Comparini, an aged burgher couple of Rome, has been married, at the age of thirteen, to Count Guido Franceschini, an impoverished middle-aged nobleman of Arezzo.  The arrangement, in which Pompilia is, of course, quite passive, has been made with the expectation, on the part of Guido, of a large dowry; on the part of the Comparini of an aristocratic alliance, and a princely board at Guido’s palace.  No sooner has the marriage taken place than both parties find that they have been tricked.  Guido, disappointed of his money, and unable to reach the pair who have deceived him, vents his spite on the innocent victim, Pompilia.  At length Pompilia, knowing that she is about to become a mother, escapes from her husband, aided by a good young priest, Giuseppe Caponsacchi, a canon of Arezzo; and a few months afterwards, at the house of her supposed parents, she gives birth to a son.  A fortnight after the birth of his heir, Guido, who has been waiting till his hold on the dowry is thus secured, takes with him four cut-throats, steals by night to Rome, and kills his wife and the aged Comparini, leaving the child alive.  He is captured the same night, and brought to judgment at Rome.  When the poem opens, the case is being tried before the civil courts.  No attempt is made to dispute the fact of Guido’s actual committal of the deed; he has been caught red-handed, and Pompilia, preserved almost by miracle, has survived her wounds long enough to tell the whole story.  The sole question is, whether the act had any justification;