4762. EBB to Isa Blagden

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 198–199.

[Florence]

[mid-October 1860] [1]

Dearest Isa, Before breakfast hands & brains are imbecile to write. I send the American paper– [2] Peni will be delighted to go to you on friday after lessons, & may he not teaze you too much!, dear kind Isa mine–

Robert bids me enclose this note of Nencini’s which he forgot to give you yesterday–

In true love (& stupidity)

your’s ever

Ba–

See what misprints in the poem!– [3] Friday is for me, remember! “questo é per me”– [4]

Publication: B-IB, pp. 370–371.

Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.

1. Approximate dating based upon EBB’s references to Pen’s visit to Isa and to his lessons, both of which would have resumed after the Brownings’ return to Florence on 11 October.

2. The Independent (New York) for 30 August 1860, in which appeared EBB’s “The Sword of Castruccio Castracani.”

3. EBB’s remark is confirmed by comparing the poem as published in The Independent with the version in Last Poems (1862). Of the many misprints, one occurred in the title: “Castracani” was spelled “Castrucani”; and one, in the epigraph: the word “King” was dropped from “King Victor Emanuel.”

4. “This is for me.” Attributed to Victor Emmanuel and used by EBB as the epigraph for “The Sword of Castruccio Castracani.” Victor Emmanuel had made his first visit as King to Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna in April 1860, when he was welcomed by Ricasoli and other dignitaries, including famous intellectuals, and it was then that he accepted the sword of Castruccio Castracani (see Gianfranco E. De Paoli, Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan, 1992, p. 190).

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