We are in fifteenth-century Florence at night.

There is no set description, but the slight touches are enough to make us see the silent lonely streets, the churches, the high walls of the monastic gardens, the fortress-palaces.

The sound of the fountains is in our ears; the little crowds of revelling men and girls appear and disappear like ghosts; the surly watch with their weapons and torches bustle round the corner.

Nor does Browning neglect to paint by slight enlivening touches, introduced into Lippo Lippi's account of himself as a starving boy, the aspect by day and the character of the Florence of the fifteenth century.

This painting of his, slight as it is, is more alive than all the elaborate descriptions in _Romola_.
As to the poem itself, Browning plunges at once into his matter; no long approaches, no elaborate porches belong to his work.