faldoni, parts 2880 - 2883

2880. This pious spectator was a certain Dominic Montafalamantori, a famous Biblical scholar of the time. He was outraged to find that his portrait had become confused with some evil looking figure carrying a long pole with a sponge attached to it in one hand, and a bucket of vinegar in the other. 

2881. Needless to say the offending portion of the painting was scraped out and repainted and the correction was done so skillfully that you would never have been able to tell the difference, but that did not satisfy either the donor or the church ecclesiastical authorities because they began to suspect that the transposition of the figures was not at all an accident but the result of malicious intent.

2882. But the question that came up almost instantly was who was to blame. It could not have been the master painter because he was never to be found painting anything but faces. One of the student assistants would have made the mistake but nobody had any recollection of who painted what sections of the painting.

2883. But the authorities had no problem assigning blame. For them it was obvious that everyone involved in the project was guilty of blasphemy, and so they simply arrested all of those who had worked on the mural, and scheduled a trial in which their guilt would be established.