MASACCIO, mu-slit'elle), properly Ton M A SO GUM (1401-2S). A Florentine painter of the early Renaissance. He was born at Castello San Giovanni, in the Val' d'Arun, on December 21. 1401. llis slovenly and disorderly habits gained for him the nickname of Masaecio. From his youth he showed an extraordinary natural ability, which when developed by continual study and the training of Donatelba, Brunelleschi, and especially Ghiberti, made possible for him an excellence in style and execution previously unat tained by the painters of Italy. lie entered the guild of the Speziali in 1421 and was enrolled in the guild of the Painters in 1424. Ile worked in Pisa. and Florence, and in 1420 produced the frescoes in San Clemente, Rome. The return of the Medici from exile in 1420 made it profitable for him to take up his work again in Florence. The next eight years were spent in painting frescoes in the Branefwei Chapel, Florence, upon which our knowledge of his art and style is based. Of the series in the chapel Slasaceio painted seven, viz.: "The Expulsion from Para dise," "The Tribute Money." "The Resuscitation of the King's Son" (finished by Filippino Lippi), "Saint Peter 'in Cathedra,'" "Saint Peter Bap tizing." "Peter Almsgiving," and "Peter and John Healing the Sick." The art of Masaeeio, while showing the influence of the religious idealist Angelico, and continuing the intellectual and humanistic traditions of Giotto and Gaddi. was essentially individual. He was preeminently indebted to Chiberti for the stimulus that really determined his artistic char acter. Ghiberti had successfully worked out in pictorial relief many of the prat:lei:is toward whose solution the fourteenth-century masters had been groping. The solution of these problems
in values, perspective, and movement Masaeeio instinctively transferred to painting—a proeess, unconscious, perhaps. that made possible the art of Leonardo, Aliehelangelo, and Raphael, and marks an era in the history of the world's paint In these paintings the master has been able, through the elimination of irrelevant de tail and a portrayal of the signifieant. to present for the first time artistic reality. The chapel thus decorated formed a veritable school where the master naturalists of Florence drew much of their inspiration. Masaeeio painted a fresco of the "Trinity" in Santa Maria Novella, Flor ence, and an altar-piece for the Church of the Carmine in Pisa, part of which is now in the Berlin Museum, which also possesses the "Con finement of a Florentine Lady" attributed to him. To avoid financial troubles. it is supposed, the painter, left Florence for Rome in 1427. where he disappeared. The only record of his end was the legend on Masaceio's tax record of 1428, "Dieesi P mart() in Roma." BIBLIOGRAPHY. Vasari, Fite, ed. Milanesi Bibliography. Vasari, Fite, ed. Milanesi (Florence, 1878: Eng. trans. by Blashfield and Hopkins; New York. ISO()) : Crowe and Caval casette. History of Painting in Italy (London. 1866) : Knudtzon. Masacein og dun llorratinske inalcrkonst (Copenhagen. 1875) ; Delaborde. Leg teurres et la manirre de Masaeeio (Paris, 18761 ; Woltmann. in Dame. Kunst and kiinstIrr Italiens (Leipzig. 1877) ; Schmarsow, Masareio Studien (Cassel, 1895). the most complete modern treatise. For reproductions of the Braneacei frescoes, see the publieations of the Arundel So ciety, with text by Layard (London, 1865).