215-220. A defense of the value of beauty for its own sake. Cf. Keats, "Ode to a Grecian Urn," and the beginning of his "Endymion." Fra Lippo Lippi has been long out of convent limitations, but he cannot forget how certain the monks were that he had chosen the wrong path, and that he could never equal the great painter, Fra Angelico (1389-1455), who, kneeling in adoration, painted lovely saints and angels, nor even Lorenzo Monaca, a Florentine painter with the same tendencies as Angelico.
257. Out at grass. Grass in this passage stands for enjoyment of life as opposed to asceticism.
276. Guidi. Tommaso Guidi, ordinarily known as Masaccio, or Tomassacio, Slovenly or Hulking Tom. Browning followed good authority in making Masaccio a pupil of Fra Lippo Lippi, but in point of fact he was probably the master whose works Fra Lippo studied. Lübke (History of Art ii, 207) says of Guidi: "In his exceedingly short life he rapidly traversed the various stages of development of earlier art, and pressed on with a bold confidence to a greatness and power of vision which have rendered his works the characteristic ones of an epoch, and his example a decisive influence in all the art of the fifteenth century.... Almost every master in the fifteenth century ... studied these great works and learned from them. One of the first of these masters was Fra Lippo Lippi." The important point is that Fra Lippo and Masaccio were both pioneers in the new art which took infinite pains in the representation of the body. Masaccio is said to have been the first Italian artist to paint a nude figure.
323. A Saint Laurence ... at Prato. Prato a town near Florence, attracted many artists in the fifteenth century, so that one finds there many specimens of Early Renaissance painting. Some of the most important of Fra Lippo Lippi's large works are in the Cathedral at Prato.
326-334. The people have been so enraged at the slaves who are pictured as assisting in the martyrdom of St. Laurence that the faces of these slaves have been scratched from the wall. The monks think the picture a huge success because it has thus roused religious zeal.
339. Chianti wine. A famous wine named from Chianti, a mountain group near Siena, Italy.
346. Sant Ambrogio's. The picture described here is the "Coronation of the Virgin" now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti of Florence. Sant' Ambrogio is a Florentine church named after St. Ambrose, a Bishop of Milan.
354. St. John. The Baptist. Note the reference to camel's hair raiment in l. 375. The Battistero, the original cathedral of Florence, was dedicated to John the Baptist. Some say the reliefs on one of its famous bronze doors represent scenes from his life. To this church all children born in Florence are brought to be baptized.
357. Job. See Job i, 1.
360. Up shall come. Artists not infrequently painted their own portraits in their pictures. In the "Coronation of the Virgin" Fra Lippo's round tonsured head is seen in the lower right hand corner.