The 'Ring' of the title is a figure for the process by

which the artist transmutes the 'pure crude fact' of

historical events into living forms; the 'Book' is a

collection of documents relating to the Italian murder

trial of the late 17th cent, on which the poem is based.

Browning found the volume on a market stall in

Florence, and offered it to several of his acquaintances

(including *Tennyson and *Trollope) before finally

deciding to use it himself.

The story in bare outline is as follows. Pietro and

Violante Comparini were a middle-aged childless

couple living in Rome. Their income could only be

secured after Pietro's death if they had a child; so

Violante bought the child of a prostitute and passed it

off as her own. This child, Pompilia, was eventually

married to Count Guido Franceschini, an impoverished

nobleman from Arezzo. The marriage was

unhappy, and the Comparini, disappointed by life

in Arezzo, returned to Rome, where they sued Guido

for the restoration of Pompilia's dowry on the grounds

of her illegitimacy, which Violante now revealed.

Pompilia herself eventually fled from Arezzo in the

company of a young priest, Giuseppe Caponsacchi.

Guido pursued them and had them arrested on the

outskirts of Rome; as a result, Caponsacchi was exiled

to Civita Vecchia for three years, and Pompilia was sent

to a convent while the lawsuits were decided. But then,

because she was pregnant, she was released into the

custody of the Comparini. A fortnight after the birth of her child, Guido and four accomplices murdered
her

and her putative parents. They were arrested and tried

for the murder, Guido claiming justification on the

grounds of his wife's adultery with Caponsacchi;

nevertheless he and his accomplices were convicted

and sentenced to death. Guido then pleaded exemption

for himself, but his appeal was rejected and the five

were executed.

In Browning's poem, the story is told by a succession

of speakerscitizens of Rome, the participants themselves,

the lawyers, and the popeeach of whose

single, insufficient perceptions combines with the

others to form the 'ring' of the truth. This design

represents Browning's response to a number of pressing

concerns in his own creative life and in contemporary

philosophies of art and religion. He saw 'truth'

as both absolute (in its divine essence) and relative (in

its human manifestation); the artist partakes of either

quality, all means of expression (such as language)

being an inadequate 'witness' to the true life of the

imagination, just as historical witnesses give a partial

and inadequate account of 'real' events.

In its immense but ordered size and scope; in the

vitality of its characters and the rich evocation of time

and place; and in its magnificently troubled exposition

of the relation between sign and significance, the poem

stands at the centre of Browning's achievement.