These stand before us as Tintoret or Veronese might have painted them had they lived on into the great portrait-century.

Their dress, their attitudes, their sudden gestures, their eyes, hair, the trick of their mouths, their armour, how they walked and talked and read and wrote, are all done in quick touches and jets of colour.

Each is distinct from the others, each a type.

A multitude of cabinet sketches of men are made in the market-places, in castle rooms, on the roads, in the gardens, on the bastions of the towns.

Take as one example the Pope's Legate: With eyes, like fresh-blown thrush-eggs on a thread, Faint-blue and loosely floating in his head, Large tongue, moist open mouth; and this long while That owner of the idiotic smile Serves them! Nor does Browning confine himself to personages of Sordello's time.
There are admirable portraits, but somewhat troubled by unnecessary matter, of Dante, of Charlemagne, of Hildebrand.