Nothing was more needed than such an effort if any fine literature were to arise in Italy.

In this unformed but slowly forming thirteenth century the language was in as great a confusion--and, I may say, as individual (for each poet wrote in his own dialect) as the life of the century.
What does Browning make Sordello do?
He has brought him to Mantua as the accepted master of song; and Sordello burns to be fully recognised as the absolute poet.

He has felt for some time that while he cannot act well he can imagine action well.

And he sings his imaginations.

But there is at the root of his singing a love of the applause of the people more than a love of song for itself.