Faldoni, parts 2508 - 2511

 2508. But Faldoni had no budget for candles. Nevertheless he had an ample supply of the cheaper sort of tallow wax and innumerable very small wicks to go along with it. 

 2509. One of the laborious tasks he was required to do was to scrape out the left over wax from the hundreds of votive candles visitors lit in the church in front of the various holy images and statues. These candles would burn down to their holders, and Faldoni had to clean out the holders and remove the stubs and the wicks.

 2510. There were hundreds of these holders to be cleaned each week, and so, over time Faldoni found himself in possession of a great quantity of wax. The good Lord seemed to be looking out for Faldoni, arranging in his mysterious ways to provide him with a source of plaster and sand, and an infinite supply of pigment and containers, left behind each day by the master and his students.

2511. God even saw to it that he could work by a very divine kind of light, a light entirely created with the wax of the devotional candles of the lay persons of the church. I offer this as an explanation of Faldoni’s good fortune when it comes to the abundance of supplies for his paintings.  Either that, or Faldoni had a very faulty idea of the concept of theft.