For the name of the picture is misleading. It does not represent a dispute or argument, as the title _Disputá_ would suggest. The real subject is an allegory of the Holy Catholic Church--the Church on Earth and the Church in Heaven, the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant. And it is the idea of the Church on Earth as held by the Roman Catholic Church that is represented. You may not be a Roman Catholic yourself, any more than I am, but none the less let us try to enter reverently for a few minutes into the conception of the picture, since it will help us to see how wonderfully the composition grows out of the idea.