Andrea del Sarto was a faultless painter and a weak character; and it fell to his lot to love with passion a faithless woman.

His natural weakness was doubled by the weakness engendered by unconquerable passion; and he ruined his life, his art, and his honour, to please his wife.

He wearied her, as women are wearied, by passion unaccompanied by power; and she endured him only while he could give her money and pleasures.

She despised him for that endurance, and all the more that he knew she was guilty, but said nothing lest she should leave him.

Browning fills his main subject--his theory of the true aim of art--with this tragedy; and his treatment of it is a fine example of his passionate humanity; and the passion of it is knitted up with close reasoning and illuminated by his intellectual play.
It is worth a reader's while to read, along with this poem, Alfred de Musset's short play, _Andre del Sarto_.