A companion poem to _Paracelsus_--so described by Browning to Leigh Hunt--was conceived by the poet soon after the appearance of the volume of 1835. When _Strafford_ was published two years later, we learn from a preface, afterwards omitted, that he had been engaged on _Sordello_. Browning desired to complete his studies for this poem of Italy among the scenes which it describes. The manuscript was with him in Italy during his visit of 1838; but the work was not to be hastily completed. _Sordello_ was published in 1840, five years after _Paracelsus_. In the chronological order of Browning's poems, by virtue of the date of origin, it lies close to the earlier companion piece; in the logical order it is the completion of a group of poems--_Pauline, Paracelsus, Sordello_--which treat of the perplexities, the trials, the failures, the ultimate recovery of men endowed with extraordinary powers; it is one more study of the conduct of genius amid the dangers and temptations of life. Here we may rightly disregard the order of publication, and postpone the record of external incidents in Browning's poetical development, in order to place _Sordello_ in its true position, side by side with _Paracelsus_. How the subject of _Sordello_ was suggested to Browning we do not know; the study of Dante may have led him to a re-creation of the story of Dante's predecessor; after having occupied in imagination the old towns of Germany and Switzerland--Würzburg and Basil, Colmar and Salzburg--he may have longed for the warmth and colour of Italy; after the Renaissance with its revolutionary speculations, he may have wished to trace his way back to the Middle Age, when men lived and moved under the shadow of one or the other of two dominant powers, apparently fixed in everlasting rivalry--the Emperor and the Pope.