How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands
To roam the town and sing out carnival,
And I've been three weeks shut within my mew,
A-painting for the great man, saints and saints
And saints again. I could not paint all night—
Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. (45-50)
It must really be a bummer to be Lippo, cooped up in his "mew" (a confined area, or a cage that a bird is trapped in) during the carnival season, when non-Church types are out partying it up. There's a double sense of confinement here: he's confined by the walls, but also by having to paint the saints—the subjects that the Prior and others want him to focus on.
Quote #2
On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast
With his great round stone to subdue the flesh (73-74)
St. Jerome is also stripped of his freedom, at least as it relates to fleshly desires. Here, he confines those desires by harming himself with a "great round stone." Those saints were super-serious about getting right with God.
Quote #3
I did renounce the world, its pride and greed,
Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house,
Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici
Have given their hearts to—all at eight years old. (98-101)
At the tender age of eight years old, Lippo's freedom is basically stripped away from him when he's forced to take vows to avoid starving to death. Because of this, he gives up the "Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house," all of which symbolize the worldly activities he's vowing to avoid for a life of contemplation.