The first reference to sculpture is in _Sordello_ (1840), where the lines concerning the Pisani (Book I, l. 574) characterize the art of Sordello’s time as just dawning into the Renaissance. In _Pippa Passes_ (1841) the poet, passing over something like five hundred years’ development, brings before the reader a picture of nineteenth century art life among students in Italy. _My Last Duchess_ (1842) deals with the decadent Renaissance, while _The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church_ (1845) presents a faithful picture of the same period. In _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_ (1850), the pendulum swings backward to the early days of Christianity, when the church Fathers abhorred the physical beauty of their art inheritance from Greece. _The Statue and the Bust_ (1855) relates events of the sixteenth century also; but they are such as have no historical significance in a chronological way, and could just as readily have happened in the thirteenth or the nineteenth century. _Old Pictures in Florence_ (1855) has the early masters as its theme, with another reference to Niccolo Pisano, the first Renaissance sculptor, though the poem concerns itself mainly with architecture and painters. _The Ring and the Book_ (1868-69) can hardly be said to deal with any particular period in art history. Chronological order is not followed, nor is there any reason in the logic or emotion of poetry why such order should obtain. Whether one denies or affirms on the question of poetical inspiration, one is compelled to admit that the practice in the past has not been to follow set formulas of time or place. No poet, unless it be a pedantic one whose work would fail utterly in spontaneity, would read history and write a poem on each period as he read. The diagram below indicates that Browning’s work was no exception to the normal procedure. 1. Early Art........................e...... 2. Dawn of Renaissance...a........./.\...g. 3. Height of Renaissance..\......./...\f/.. 4. Decadent Renaissance....\..c__/d........ 5. Modern..................b\/............. a. _Sordello_--1840. b. _Pippa Passes_--1841. c. _My Last Duchess_--1842. d. _The Bishop orders his Tomb_--1845. e. _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_--1850. f. _The Statue and the Bust_--1855. g. _Old Pictures in Florence_--1855. III. POETIC FUNCTIONS OF THE REFERENCES TO SCULPTURE.--Of the function of portraying the times, _Sordello_ gives an example. Browning became interested in the thirteenth-century troubadour, and then in his historical surroundings. In working out the social medium in which Sordello was to live and move, Browning named the Pisan Brothers to illustrate the sculptural conditions at the time--one of those numerous small details of which the ordinary reader is scarcely conscious, which are yet extremely important in making a perfect word picture. He spoke of Sordello as--