115. _The Prado._ The chief fashionable promenade of Madrid.
Fra Lippo Lippi was born in Florence in 1406. See Vasari's _Lives of the Painters_ for the account of his life on which Browning based his poem. (Vasari's account is quoted in Cooke's _Browning Guide Book_.)
2. _You need not clap your torches._ Throughout this lively dramatic monologue it is important to mark every indication of the words or gestures of the auditors; for instance, in lines 13, 18, 26, etc.
7. _The Carmine._ Fra Lippo Lippi's entrance into the monastery of the friars del Carmine and his education there are described later in the poem. He lived there till he was twenty-six. He had no vocation for the life of a monk and wished to devote himself to painting. He apparently left the monastery on good terms with the friars.
17. _Master--a Cosimo of the Medici._ Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464) was a rich Florentine banker and statesman. He was a magnificent patron of art and literature. The old Medici palace (l. 17), now known as _Palazzo Riccardi_, is on the corner of the _Via Cavour_ and the _Via Gori_. The church of _San Lorenzo_ (the "Saint Laurence" of l. 67) is a short distance farther west on the Via Gori.
22. _Pick up a manner_. The painter protests against the rough usage to which he has been subjected.
23. _Zooks._ An interjection formerly written "gadzooks." _Pilchards_ are a common cheap fish of the Mediterranean and are taken in seines.
28. _Quarter-florin._ The florin was a gold coin of Florence. It was first struck off in the twelfth century and was called a florin because it had a flower stamped on one side.
31. _I'd like his face._ The painter cannot look upon the crowd of men about him without seeing faces he would like to draw. One man would do as a model for Judas. Another would do well in a picture Fra Lippo's imagination quickly conjures up of a slave holding the head of John the Baptist by the hair. In Fra Lippo's real picture of the beheading of John the Baptist the head is brought in by Salome, the daughter of Herodias, on a great platter.
46. _Carnival._ The days preceding Lent. A period marked by much gaiety, street revelry, masking, etc.
53. _Flower o' the broom._ These flower songs, called _stornelli_, are improvised by the peasants at their work. "The _stornelli_ consists of three lines. The first line usually contains the name of a flower which sets the rhyme and is five syllables long. Then the love theme is told in two lines of eleven syllables each, agreeing by rhyme, assonance, or repetition with the first." (Porter and Clarke note in Camberwell Edition.) Browning does not follow the model strictly.