The Brownings had lived in Italy for three years when their son was born at Casa Guidi in Florence.

Visiting the Brownings, the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote of Pen: I never saw such a boy as this before; so slender, fragile, and spirit-like, – not as if he were actually in ill health, but as if he had little or nothing to do with human flesh and blood.

His parents ought to turn their whole attention to making him robust and earthly, and to giving him a thicker scabbard to sheathe his spirit in.

Robert was anxious that his son should attend a university, and sought the help of Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, the leading Oxford academic of the day.

[4] Because Balliol was too demanding for Pen, he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he much enjoyed the sporting side of college life: he delighted in swimming, rowing, fencing, riding and boxing.

[5] As a painter, Browning was proficient, but his penchant for painting voluptuous female nudes did not encourage sales in Victorian England.

[6] Browning and Fannie took care of Robert's dependants, including his sister Sarianna and old family servants, who came to live with them in Venice.

[4] Browning sold Ca' Rezzonico in 1906 and thereafter divided his time between two other homes in Italy, the Torre all' Antella, near Florence, and Asolo, a location closely associated with his father, who set his poem "Pippa Passes" there and wrote his last book, Asolando, while living there.

He was given a splendid funeral and was buried in Asolo, but ten years later Fannie had his body moved to Florence.

[6] Browning died intestate, and the collection of manuscripts and memorabilia of his parents that he had carefully built up over many years was auctioned and dispersed.