The _Vita Nuova_ was set forth in 1290, 93, the _Decameron_ in 1350, 53, and Petrarch was crowned at Rome in 1341.

And the arts of sculpture and painting were in the same condition.

They were struggling towards a new utterance, but as yet they could not speak.
It is during this period of impassioned confusion and struggle towards form, during this carnival of individuality, that Sordello, as conceived by Browning, a modern in the midst of mediaevalism, an exceptional character wholly unfitted for the time, is placed by Browning.

And the clash between himself and his age is too much for him.

He dies of it; dies of the striving to find an anchorage for life, and of his inability to find it in this chartless sea.