entlemen clad in fine ecclesiastical robes
walk in the religious procession and carry tall wax candles or torches;
the drippings from these candles the street-urchin wishes to catch in
order to sell them again, but it is against the law, and the fine
gentlemen if not kindly disposed may call in the magistrates ("The
Eight") and have the boy whipped.

130. _The antiphonary's marge._ He scrawled his sketches on the margins
of the book used by the choir, and he made faces out of the notes, which
were then square with long stems.

139. _We Carmelites._ The three orders of monks, the Carmelites, the
Camaldolese, and the Dominicans (called "Preaching Brothers" by Pope
Innocent III) owned various monasteries and churches, and were each
ambitious to possess the greatest sacred paintings.

145-163. These lines describe the different figures painted on the wall
by Fra Lippo when the prior bade him "daub away." The monks dressed in
black or white according to the garb of their orders; the old women
waiting to confess small thefts; the row of admiring little children
gazing at a bearded fellow, a murderer who, still breathing hard with
the run that has brought him in safety to the altar steps, defies the
"white anger" of his victim's son, who has followed him into the church;
the girl who loves the brute of a murderer, and brings him flowers,
food, and her earrings to aid him when he shall escape--all these are
painted on the wall. Then the young artist took down the ladder by means
of which he had reached the bit of cloister-wall where he had been
recording his observations of life, and called the monks to see.

156. _Whose sad face._ The purpose of Christ's suffering ("passion") on
the cross was to bring love into the world, but after a thousand years
of his teaching his image looks down upon theft, anger, murder.

172. _My triumph's straw-fire._ Lippo's triumph was as short-lived as a
fire of straw. The monks were delighted with the realism of the
painting, but when the Prior and the critics came they declared that
such "homage to the perishable clay" was a mere "devil's game." The
business of the painter, they said, was to ignore the body and paint the
soul.

184. _Man's soul._ Note the difficulty the Prior experiences when he
tries to describe the "soul" he wishes the artist to paint. Lines
185-186 represent an old superstition.

189-198. In contrast to the homely realism of Fra Lippo's picture of
ordinary people are t