5598. RB to William Cornwallis Cartwright
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 257.
19 Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace W.
May 18. ’65.
My dear Cartwright,
Should the m.s. notice, which you mention, [1] be one beginning thus—“Dimorando da qualche tempo in Roma Guido Franceschini, nobile di Arezzo in Toscana, ed al servizio di personaggio eminente, si decise a prender moglie” [2] &c—it will be unnecessary to trouble Mr Craven. [3] Should it be another account, the loan of it would oblige me exceedingly.
Ever yours most truly
Robert Browning.
Publication: LRB, p. 85.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. In his journal, Cartwright recorded that while in Naples the previous October, he called on Augustus Craven (see note 3 below) and found in his father’s library “a narrative of the murder of his wife [Pompilia] by Count Franceschini” (see SD2725). The editors of The Poems of Browning consider speculation that Craven’s manuscript “might have been a volume entitled ‘Varii successi curiosi e degni di esser considerati’ [which they call “Casanatense”] … discovered in the Royal Casanatense Library in Rome in 1900” (The Poems of Browning, Vol. 5, ed. John Woolford, Daniel Karlin, and Joseph Phelan, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, 2022, p. 75). Regarding whether or not this was the “m.s. notice” Cartwright found, the editors write: “It is … impossible to know for certain what Cartwright saw in Craven’s library. Our view is that B. either did not see Casanatense at all, or saw it only at a very late stage of the poem’s composition” (p. 75). As of 18 May 1867, RB had not seen Craven’s manuscript (see letter of that date to Cartwright, ms at ABL).
2. “Residing for some time in Rome, Guido Franceschini, a noble from Arezzo in Tuscany, and in the service of an eminent person, decided to take a wife.” These are the opening words of what has become known as the Secondary Source for The Ring and the Book, a manuscript entitled Morte dell’ Uxorcida Guido Franceschini Decapitato (see letter 5112, note 8).
3. Augustus Craven (1806–84), natural son of Keppel Richard Craven (1779–1851), was in the British diplomatic service from 1830 to 1856, his last posting being attaché to the Legation at Naples (see The Foreign Office List for 1857, pp. 48–49).
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