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Updated: June 8, 2025
He was invited to add a finishing touch to the Masaccio frescos; Leonardo, the courtly, had smiled a gracious recognition, and Michelangelo had sneezed at mention of his name. Bramante, back at Rome, told Pope Julius the Second, "There is a young Umbrian at Florence we must send for." Great things were happening at Rome about this time: all roads led thitherward.
It is evident that the Fra went through the world with his eyes open, looking for beauty wherever it was visible; and in his works, at least, there is no lingering trace of Byzantinism. A scholar of Masaccio, of a far inferior mind both to Masaccio and Maselino, and without the force of hand of either, he is still, more than both together, the founder of the natural school of Florence.
It may suffice here to mention Bartolommeo Colleoni, Angelo Poliziano, and Pontano, all of whom owed their start in life to the murder of their respective fathers by assassins; to Varchi and Filelfo, whose lives were attempted by cut-throats; to Cellini, Perugino, Masaccio, Berni, in each of whose biographies poison and the knife play their parts.
Gifted with exceptional powers, he overleaped the difficulties of his art, and arrived intuitively at results whereof as yet no scientific certainty had been secured. His contemporaries applied humbler talents to severe study, and wrought out by patient industry those principles which Masaccio had divined.
In S. Maria Maggiore, also, in a chapel near the side-door which leads to S. Giovanni, where there are the panel and predella of Masaccio, he wrought an Annunciation in fresco, wherein he made a building worthy of consideration, which was something new and difficult in those times, seeing that it was the first possessing any beauty of manner which was seen by craftsmen, showing them with grace and proportion how to manage the receding of lines, and how to give so great an extent to a level space which is small and confined, that it appears far distant and large; and when to this, with judgment and grace, men can add shadows and lights by means of colours in their proper places, there is no doubt that they cause an illusion to the eye, so that it appears that the painting is real and in relief.
"Henceforth, when rings the health to those Who live in story and in song, O, nameless dead, that now repose Safe in oblivion's chambers strong, One cup of recognition true Shall silently be drained to you!" "But Masaccio does not need any other monument than this chapel.
But it would be difficult to discover in the pictures of Masaccio, Fra Filippo Lippi, Ghirlandajo, Botticelli and the other masters of the Italian fifteenth century, with the sole exception of Fra Angelico, the same depth of religious inspiration which pervades the works of the Van Eycks and of their disciples.
He lived with his mother and his brother Giovanni, an artist like himself, but not nearly so brilliant. Masaccio could not spend his life in painting but had to eke out the family fortunes by keeping a little shop near the old Badia, and being pestered day and night by his creditors he was forced again and again to go to the pawn shop.
He worked at this problem day and night, till at last the naturally poised foot came into existence for the artist. Never after Masaccio's time did an artist paint the foot stretched upon the toes. Moreover, until his time flesh had never been painted of a remotely natural colour, so Masaccio set about combining colours till he made one that had the tint of real flesh.
Here in the choir is a series of frescos by Masolino da Panicale, the master of Masaccio, who painted them about the year 1428. "Masolinus de Florentia pinxit" decides their authorship. The histories of the Virgin, St. Stephen, and St. Lawrence are represented; but the injuries of time and neglect have been so great that it is difficult to judge them fairly.
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