3. _Aloed arch._ The genus aloe includes trees, shrubs, and herbs. The
American variety is the century-plant. Browning's hill-side villa
evidently had aloes trained to grow in an arch.
15. _The startling bell-tower Giotto raised._ Giotto began the Campanile
in 1334, and after his death in 1337 the work was continued by Andrea
Pisano. Its striking beauty impresses the poet as he looks out over the
city. But it does more than that, for it rouses in him reflections on
the progress and meaning of art.
17-24. The address to Giotto, thrown in here as it is with
conversational freedom, is partially explained in lines 184-248. See
note on l. 236.
30. _By a gift God grants me._ The power to re-create vividly and
minutely the past. The artists of bygone centuries are called back by
his imagination to their old haunts in Florence.
44. _Stands One._ The "one" (l. 44), "a lion" (l. 47), "the wronged
great soul" (l. 48), and "the wronged great souls" (l. 58), all refer to
the unappreciated early artists.
50. _They._ That is, the famous great artists such as Michael Angelo and
Raphael. Critics "hum and buzz" around them with praise to which they
are indifferent.
59. _Where their work is all to do._ Their place in the development of
art is not yet understood. It must be made clear, Browning thinks, that
painters like Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) come in natural succession
from earlier obscure artists like Dello, that art is a real and
continuous record of the human mind and heart.
67. _The mastiff girns._ When some influential critic snarls, all the
imitative inferior critics take the same tone. Cf. Shelley's "Adonais,"
stanzas 28, 37, 38.
69. _Stefano._ A pupil of Giotto and called "Nature's ape" because his
accurate representations of the human body.
72. _Vasari._ Author of _Lives of the Most Eminent Painters and
Sculptors_. (Published 1550. Translated by Mrs. Foster in _Bohn's
Library_.) In his studies of art Browning made constant use of this
book.
76. _Sic transit. Sic transit gloria mundi._ "So passes away the glory
of the world."
84. _In fructu._ "As fruit." The fruit of Greek art at its best was that
it presented in marble ideally perfect human bodies.
98. _Theseus._ The kingly statue of the reclining Theseus in the frieze
of the Parthenon.
99. _Son of Priam._ In the sculptures of Æsina, Paris, the son of Priam,
kneeling and drawing his bow, has a grace beyond that of any man who
might think to pose as a model.